Hindustan Times: Mumbai: Sunday,
March 05, 2017.
Between April
2013 and March 2014, the MU made Rs2.67 crore in re-evaluation fee and Rs15.63
lakh for photocopies of answer booklets.(HT)
Of 2.19 lakh students who had applied for
re-evaluation of their papers to the University of Mumbai between 2014 and
April 2016, nearly 73,000, or 30%, had passed the exam for which they were
marked ‘failed’.
An RTI filed
by activist Vihar Durve revealed that many students had complained about this
problem of delay in re-evaluations, leaving them with an extra burden of
appearing for allowed-to-keep-term (ATKT) exams, only to find out later that
they had passed the exam.
“The
university receives crores of rupees from students every year in the name of
photocopying and re-evaluation fees. But never do they refund the money to
students who were wrongly failed,” said Durve.
According to
figures revealed in another RTI filed by Durve last year, between April 2013
and March 2014, the MU made Rs2.67 crore in re-evaluation fee and Rs15.63 lakh
for photocopies of answer booklets. In the next two academic sessions,
re-evaluation fee has helped garner more than Rs4.8 crore and Rs25.3 lakh for
photocopies. The MU charges Rs100 per subject for photocopy of the answer
booklet whereas re-evaluation charge is Rs 500 per subject.
Durve
received the RTI reply after months of battle with the MU and escalating the
matter to the appellate authority. “It shows that the university was trying to
hide these details. Instead, they should invest more time and efforts to avoid
such instances in the future,” added Durve.
MU registrar
MA Khan said re-evaluation fees is charged for getting the answer booklet
re-evaluated and not for the benefit of he university. “If a student ends up
appearing for an ATKT exam owing to delay in announcing results of
re-evaluation and then finds out that s/he has passed the exam already, then we
refund the fees charged for the re-exam,” said Khan.
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