Times of India: Allahabad: Thursday, 01 May 2014.
Feeling
cheated by the authorities of the Allahabad University's Geography department,
the students of post graduate diploma in town-country planning of the
department have threatened to boycott polling on May 7. Despite paying a hefty
fee of over Rs 18,000, these students are not getting jobs anywhere in the
country as the course is not recognized by Institute of Town Planners India
(ITPI) in New Delhi.
"We are
filling forms in all parts of the country, but no one, including the government
and NGO's, are ready to employ us saying the course is not recognized,"
said one of the students of the course, Tej Bahadur. He completed his degree in
2010 and has been searching for job since past four years.
These
students had even demanded the AU authorities to either ensure the recognition
of the course or cough up the compensation to the affected students for
financial loss as well as waste of time and mental harassment. "Registrar,
Prof BP Singh, on June 24, 2013, categorically told us that AU will not
compensate for the loss."
"Can
someone ever imagine in the wildest dream that central university of the
country can cheat its own students and teach a course which is not duly
recognized and that too since 2003-04," said Mridul Chaurasia, another
student.
The course,
launched by AU's Geography department in 2003-04, has been closed since 2009
owing to the non-recognition by the ITPI, New Delhi. Today, over 150 students
are neither able to get a job on the basis of this course nor are getting
compensation from the varsity despite numerous applications.
The varsity
authorities, while replying to an RTI dated February 27, 2013 states that
"the fact that recognition of this course by ITPI, New Delhi was required
to be obtained was neither known to the university authorities concerned nor to
the geography department."
Frustrated,
these students thought that the ongoing election season could be the best time
to get the attention of political leaders who can do something but none came to
their help. "Everyone tells us, chunav ke bad ana (come after elections),
and now we are mustering support for our style of protest wherein around 200 of
us have decided not to vote in this election," said Gaurav Gupta, another
sufferer of the department's negligence.
"This is
unfortunate and not acceptable and we will take up the issue," said Keshav
Prasad Maurya, BJP's candidate from Phulpur.
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