Sunday 8 December 2013

Engineering colleges 'lure' students from Bihar with freebies


Engineering colleges 'lure' students from Bihar with freebies
College managements which used to send their public relation teams to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are now trying to rope in students from Bihar in large numbers.

HYDERABAD: Many engineering colleges, which have lost out to varsities in other states in terms of annual intake of students owing to political uncertainty in the state, are now turning to Bihar to fill in their vacant seats.


College managements which used to send their public relation teams to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are now trying to rope in students from Bihar in large numbers. According to the data available with the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE), thousands of students from Bihar have taken admission in colleges in Andhra Pradesh in the past five years.

Figures reveal that since 2008, out of 27,930 students who joined engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh, 60 to 70% hailed from Bihar. Last year, over one lakh seats in engineering colleges across the state were lying vacant with just 1.30 lakh students coming forward to take admissions. This year, 13 out of the 609 private engineering colleges had no new admissions while less than 10 students took admission in 34 engineering colleges.

A representative of colleges admitted that some colleges have been trying to get students from other states in order to fill the vacant seats. However, students from other states should occupy only 5% of the total number of seats available in a college. "Some college representatives resort to dubious means such as using the local addresses of students in their records so they can fill their vacant seats to sidestep questions on nativity," a representative of a professional college managements' association said. The board which issues certificates declaring equivalence of 10+2 grades obtained by students from other state boards, had allowed 6,000 students across the country to take admission in state engineering colleges this year, out of which over 3,080 hailed from Bihar.

Engineering colleges have been drawing students from Maharastra, Jammu and Kashmir and Mizoram apart from Nepal and the Gulf countries.

Interestingly, sources said that these students have been admitted in engineering colleges for a fee less than the convener quota fee of Rs 35,000. "Students were lured to get fee reimbursement scheme funds from the state government. There is no record on whether these students are still studying in the state, even as colleges mint money using their names," said P Madhusudan Reddy of Government Junior College Lecturers Association, a body which has already brought the issue to the notice of the state government.

Observers said that marketing manuals of colleges promise free accommodation in college hostels for students from Bihar. Sources said, in some cases, students are even offered laptops and gadget

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