Times
of India: New Delhi: Monday, 06 October 2014.
Physically
challenged Chandan Singh and NIT, Tiruchirappalli, are caught in a curious
blame game. Singh alleges his institute is not letting him repeat papers of
civil engineering to improve Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) while NIT
says he has been helped enough and that he needs psychiatric help.
Belonging to
a poor family from Bokaro, Singh passed out in civil engineering from NIT,
Tiruchirappalli in 2012 with 5.4 CGPA. He acknowledges that in many papers in
which he had failed, his institute helped by increasing it to above 40 so that
he could pass. After passing out, he realized 5.4 CGPA is not good enough to
get PSU jobs in the handicapped category. "I asked the institute to allow
me to repeat a few papers so that I can improve my CGPA. I wanted institute to
restore the original marks I had scored in few papers so that I could take them
again." Unable to get a job, Chandan says he began begging in Rameshwaram
and other towns of Tamil Nadu.
Chandan filed
many RTI queries and eventually went to the Central Information Commission with
the request that answer sheets of 16 papers be made available to him. The
Institute said it has only seven answer sheets and nine others cannot be
traced. Singh even went to the court of the chief commissioner for persons with
disabilities but did not get any relief. In fact, the commissioner said NIT did
not follow any discriminatory policy. Disability commissioner also did not
accede to Chandan's demand to restore the marks he had scored so that he can repeat
those papers. It agreed with NIT's proposal to put Chandan in an
entrepreneurial course and asked the department of public enterprises to
consider cases of those who had disability in both hands but had become civil
engineer.
Chandan
insists that if his marks are restored he would be entitled to take the papers
again. He says students are allowed to complete four-year engineering course in
eight years. Srinivasan Sundarrajan, director, NIT, Tiruchirappalli says
Chandan was given all the help by the institute including increasing his marks
through moderation. "Even the disability commissioner did not rule in his
favour. His intentions are not correct. Chandan has used the institute for his
advantage," he says. Sundarrajan asks how can CGPA be increased now and
admits few answer sheets cannot be found. The director says Chandan threatened
to immolate himself and used to make 40-50 calls to him well into mid-night
forcing Sundarrajan to change his number.
Chandan now
wants to take his plea to the NIT Council. "If I do not get any relief I
will go back to begging or take some drastic action," he says.
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