Fake certificates getting ‘players’ admission in DU
NEW DELHI: On an average, over 10,000 students apply through sports quota at the Delhi University every year and close to 3000 make the cut to seek admission to one of its 80 affiliated colleges.
Given the neck to neck competition to get into one of the countries top universities, sports at the university level too should have been right up there. But that is hardly the case.
University sport is in doldrums and cases of undeserving candidates getting into DU through sports quota is further damaging the foundation.
Enterprising players have found a way to arrange for fake certificates and the Delhi University Sports Council officials aren’t too eager to cross check the merit of the certificates.
Documents in possession of the Hindustan Times reveal that some of the candidates have either furnished certificates from organisations that exist only on paper or recognised by neither the sports ministry nor the Indian Olympic Association.
One of the candidate from Uttar Pradesh, his name has been withheld, has made the DU cut based on a certificate issued by an association called the All Uttar Pradesh State Sports Association. According to the certificate, he won bronze in the junior boys’ 200m at the ‘state-level’ competition held last year in Baruat in Baghpat district.
Organising track and field events in Uttar Pradesh is the prerogative of the Uttar Pradesh Athletics Association (UPAA) and its secretary PK Srivastava denied his association had organised any junior state meet in Baghpat last year. “We didn’t approve or organise any competition in Baghpat last year,” Srivastava told Hindustan Times. “I think the certificate is fake. More than hundred such cases have come to light in the past few months,” he added.
At the trials conducted by DU, the athlete from UP got 37 out of possible 60 and on the basis of his ‘fake’ certificate, he got 21 out of 40 taking his aggregate to 58 out of 100 and made the cut.
In another case, a candidate furnished a certificate issued by the Rural Games Federation of India (RGFI), an organisation not affiliated to either IOA or is recognised by the sports ministry.
Pradeep Kataria, general secretary of the RGFI accepted it but told HT from Rohtak: “We organise national level competitions in over 10 disciplines including wrestling, boxing and athletics.”
Another prospective student too cleared the selection process. He had a participation certificate in athletics issued by an organisation called the National Youth Games Committee of India, which is said to have organised the third edition of the National Youth Games in Raiwala in Haridwar, Uttrakhand.
The fact is, all recognised youth and age-group events are organised by the National Sports Federations (NSFs). In this case, the official national youth athletics meet was organised by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) in May 2016 at Kozhikode, Kerala. And based on that, the country’s top athletes participated in second Asian Youth Athletics Championship in Bangkok.
Surinder Singh, assistant professor of physical education at Keshav Mahavidhyalaya, was the convener for athletics at DU. He said documents are cross checked only if there is a complaint.