PhD aspirants have raised questions against the process of admission to various PhD programmes at the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar.
The institute is said to have advertised for admissions to various PhD programmes under its jurisdiction and invited applications by September 25.As per the procedure laid down, the aspirants applied for admission with a research proposal and bank draft of Rs. 500 as application fee for PhD registration. The listed subjects on offer also included several branches of Economics, namely Economic Sociology and Development Economics.
On September 30, the NIT also came out with a list of short- listed applicants who were supposed to undergo an entrance and personal interview on October 27.The list also contained the names of applicants aspiring for a PhD in Economics.
However, the aspirants alleged that after they had reached Srinagar on October 27 travelling through hilly terrains the authorities reportedly declined to hold the admission, citing dearth of suitable faculty for supervising PhD programmes in Economics.
One of the aspirants Peeyush Sharma alleged that as they wanted to meet the director H T Thorat it was said that he was on tour and would be available only after the scheduled time for the entrance test. “After we argued a lot we were allowed to meet the in- charge Saroj Ranjan Dey. We requested him to give a written note confirming cancellation of PhD programme in Economics. But he declined to do so and assured that their application would be considered whenever they would have a faculty to supervise the students.
However, he relented a little later and agreed to conduct a written test for PhD admission immediately and asked the students to wait for 15 minutes. Within 15 minutes, a question paper with 20 multiple choice type questions was prepared and an entrance was conducted. This raised serious questions on the accountability of the institutes that are being financed by the hard- earned money of the tax payers,” the aggrieved aspirant for PhD said.
They further said they would meet the director of the institute on Thursday.