Members of Making a Difference by Being the Difference (MAD) have alleged that the higher education system in Uttarakhand is marred by corruption. Addressing the media here on Friday, MAD founding member Abhijay Negi said that poor students are being denied certain privileges they were promised earlier by the colleges affiliated to the Uttarakhand Technical University (UTU).
He said that on March 5, 2010 the State Government had issued an order for facilitating a Student Welfare Fund for those studying in institutions affiliated to the Uttarakhand Technical University. This fund was for students from families wherein the sole wage earner had expired while the student was studying in the college/institution and was provided to those students who had all clear academic record.
Negi said, "Focus was elicited on this issue when one of the applicants from Dehradun Institute of Technology, was asked to leave the examination hall for non deposition of fee despite being eligible for the exemption. This student filed for exemption in February 2013 but later he found that the UTU had lost his documents and he applied again in November.
He said that when the case came to light after MAD sought information under RTI and was told that the committee had not met once since 2012. This had caused problems to the poor students Negi blamed the Vice Chancellor V K Jain for refusing appointments on the issue and sitting over the directions which came from Secretary Education and Secretary Youth Welfare. He claimed that though MAD met the Chief Minister thrice on the issue the VC was elusive to meet.
Negi alleged that on February 6 this year, UTU retrospectively altered the terms of the policy of fee exemption. He added that the duplicity of UTU is exposed when it declared that the Student Welfare Fund is being stopped because of financial crisis faced by UTU and at the same time it announced exemptions for the disaster victim students.