AICTE’s letter says one thing, website another
A provisional letter by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to the winners of the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS) for J and K states that the heads of their colleges will submit their “reports” (we presume admission details) to AICTE. On the AICTE website, however, the scholarship holders have been asked to upload their documents.
When asked by a parent as to who – the college principals or scholarship holders – would upload the documents, an AICTE official recently said: “I think the college will upload the document. We are yet to make provision for that on our website.”
According to the AICTE website, “All the provisionally eligible candidates for PMSSS 2015-16, whose name appears in the final merit list and have been allotted seats through the centralised counselling held during 23rd July to 11th August, 2015 at Jammu and Srinagar, are requested to upload all relevant documents for processing to release Scholarship as per the existing provisions under the scheme.”
Due to this confusion, many colleges are today either unaware or have not been able to upload their students’ documents due to technical problems on the site. The website requires students to furnish proof for admission fee, PG rent, book purchase slip and several other documents and get these verified by the college to claim the scholarship money.
When this correspondent visited Ramjas College on Friday, August 21, 2015, to find out what steps had been taken by the college for smooth disbursal of the scholarship money to students, none of the officials contacted there had any idea about the action they had to take.
Many of the principals in the colleges where the students have been admitted have expressed reservations against verifying the rent slips and bills for books, saying they have no way to determine how genuine these receipts are.
“The student who has got admission in my college brought rent slips and book receipt and asked me to verify them. How do I know whether these are genuine slips? I have refused to do that,” says SK Garg, principal, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College
Some changes in the scholarship scheme have also upset the students and their parents. “For general course, AICTE, per annum, awards up to ` 30,000 as tuition fee and up to ` 1 lakh for accommodation, books and stationery. Doesn’t AICTE know how much it costs to rent PG accommodation and to travel in Delhi and buy books and stationery? Is it possible to survive for ` 1lakh in Delhi in one year? College authorities would think that the students have procured fake bills and we would be unnecessarily harassed,” says a student.
When contacted, no one from AICTE was available for any comment. Mails and phone calls to AICTE chairman, Professor Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe and vice chairman, Avinash S Pant went unanswered.