Admission in the Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV) due to political influence has been quite harassing for the common people. The special quota extended to MPs for admission is not without controversy.

While the maximum quota for a MP is 10 seats per year, he/she receives hundreds of pleas seeking recommendation letters. But a MP only recommends for those who are party-affiliated or special to him/her. Nepotism therefore rules the roost whereas common people are ignored. Contractors, businessmen and affluent persons manage to exercise their role in the matter pertaining to admission in the KV.

When I meet a man in the Paradip area recently, he was crying for being harassed. He narrated the whole pathetic story of failure to get admission of his grandson in the KV. He told me that he requested the local MP to get admission for his grandson but the MP did not take any interest because he had no means to appease the MP and he did not even work in the election time. “Those who were working in election time and spending lots of money for the MP were dear to him. He is for them,” he lamented.

While a lok Sabha member can refer to 10 students to any KV school in his constituency, a Rajya Sabha member has the advantage of referring to any school in the respective State. last year, the quota was six but it was enhanced to ten this academic year.

The Kendriya Vidyalayas are a system of the Central Government school running under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). It is comprises over a thousand school in India and three in abroad. But the MP quota is surely a blot on the system.

So, preference should be given to students from the poor background, while deserving candidates should not be deprived of learning in KV.

(The writer is a research scholar in Jagannath cult and culture)