The Indian Express: Mumbai: Thursday, November 23, 2017.
THE ONSCREEN
assessment process, implementation of which was followed by a delay in
declaration of results of the summer semester of the University of Mumbai this
year and resulted in the removal of vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh, has cost
the university Rs 1.18 crore so far. In response to a query by activist Anil
Galgali under the Right to Information Act, the university has said Rs 1.18
crore has been paid to Merit Trac, the agency implementing the process, and Rs
2.99 crore remains to be paid.
Documents
reveal that Merit Trac Services Pvt Ltd raised two bills for its services the
first of Rs 1,48,63,750 on May 18 and the second amounting to Rs 2,69,27,350.99
on August 16. While the university has made a payment of Rs 1,18,17,404, the
balance of Rs 2,99,73,696 is pending. A senior official said the university had
to bear a one-time cost to set up the onscreen system and that the cost for
evaluation would be reduced eventually. “With the onscreen process, our cost on
logistics has reduced drastically. Once the system is completely implemented
and teachers are comfortable with it, costs will further reduce,” he said.
After it
switched to onscreen assessment from manual correction earlier this year, the
university had faced great embarrassment when the examination department failed
to declare results within the statutory deadline of 30 days. The delay of
almost three months affected the future of 4.5 lakh students. The issue was
also raised in the Monsoon Session of the Assembly with the Opposition seeking
the resignation of Deshmukh as well as state Education Minister Vinod Tawde.
Deshmukh was later sacked.
.JPG)
.JPG)
