AU letter creates flutter in colleges

‘No admit cards if fee not deposited’

FINAL EXAMS of Allahabad University (AU) may be set to begin from March 11 and preparations for them could be in fullswing, but thousands of students enrolled in various constituent colleges of the varsity may still end up facing a lot of hardship to appear in the all-important examinations— for no fault of their own.

In a recent move, the AU administration has shot off a letter to the principals of all the constituent colleges making it clear that unless the colleges deposit the entire sum collected as fee from the students during the 2005-06 academic session with the varsity, the admit cards of its students will not be issued/released by the university. The sudden development has created quite a stir among the constituent college fraternity.

This year all the admissions to undergraduate classes took place in the colleges after AU attained the coveted Central University status. Under the old system, all the colleges used to deposit 80 per cent of the money collected by it through fee from the students with the state treasury and 20 per cent was retained for college development and other expenditures. However, this year, it did not take place due to the change in the status of AU and its colleges.

As from July 2005, all the salaries to the teachers and the non-teaching staff of the constituent colleges are being disbursed by AU, the varsity administration through a letter has made it clear to the colleges that they need to first deposit the money collected as fee from the students this year with it and only then will the varsity administration release the admit cards of its students mandatory for them to appear in the final exams.

On being contacted, AU Controller of Examinations Prof Hari Shankar Upadhyaya confirmed the development. "We have sent the letter to all the constituent colleges on February 18 and have asked them to deposit the entire fee money collected by them through a cheque as the varsity administration has decided to release the admit cards of students of only those colleges which complete this important formality. However, till date no college has deposited the fee money with the varsity," he said.

The AU letter has created quite a stir in the college fraternity. Sources say that two colleges have even deposited some money with AU as a result. But as the deposited sum consisted of only the examination fee, they too have been asked to first deposit the entire money collected by it as fee from the students and only then will the admit cards be issued to them.