Details of deserving candidates ‘altered’; STF to probe scam

LUCKNOW: Details of candidates in counselling sheets were allegedly altered to give admissions to those who scored low marks, at Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy colleges in the state via NEET-2021, a primary probe has suggested.

As many as 891 first-year students of the traditional medicine systems in Uttar Pradesh are under scanner after the state government announced a probe into ‘fraudulent admissions’ at Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy colleges. Six Ayurveda college students in Lucknow had already been suspended in this connection.

Out of 891, 43 are students of government Ayurveda colleges while 473 others had secured admissions to private Ayurveda colleges; six are students of state-run and two of private homeopathy colleges; and 367 are Unani students. It is alleged that these students were given admission despite their scoring below the cut-off marks.

“We have ordered an inquiry... The guilty will be punished after a proper investigation...” said Dayashankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’, Uttar Pradesh AYUSH minister.

Meanwhile, an investigation into the issue will now be conducted by Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force. “An FIR has been lodged against two firms. One of them was given tender to conduct the counselling and the other was hired for technical support by the first company,” said Rajesh Srivastava, ADCP (central).

The investigating team will be handed over documents related to the admissions and also details of the software that was used for the counselling and the allotment of seats.

Apart from the officials of the agency that conducted the counselling, officials of the AYUSH department are also likely to be questioned by the

investigating team.

After the issue came to light, the directorate of Ayurveda matched the list of candidates who passed NEET in the year with the data from the office of the director general of medical education, and found that the admission of 891 candidates to the mentioned colleges was doubtful.

“The initial probe has revealed that names and other details of candidates, such as allotment number and date of birth, were changed. Thus, the name of a deserving candidate was removed, and someone who did not score well was given admission via counselling. This is a criminal offence,” said the initial fact-finding report of the AYUSH department.

In the NEET-2021 counselling, out of the 7,338 sanctioned seats, 6,797 were filled.

It may be added that the agency that conducted NEET2021 counselling for AYUSH had also conducted the counselling for the appointment of paramedical staff to the department of Ayurveda.

How the cheating was done “If candidate ‘A’ has obtained 100 marks, which would mean that he/she has qualified the exam, then certain changes were made to ‘A’s’ details in the server. This way a non-deserving candidate got the seat that belonged to someone else. To

make sure there is no controversy, only the names of candidates from outside Uttar Pradesh were removed and replaced with candidates with poor marks,” a senior officials privy to the matter said.