M A I N   N E W S

Marks scandal detected in PTU
4 becomes 26, clerk caught
Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 13
If you are a parent of a dull student, all you have to do is to contact the right person in Punjab Technical University with a bagful of money and most likely your child will figure among those who have passed their examination with flying colours.

This has been happening in the university for years thanks to a racket being run by university officials.

The PTU has been in troubled waters since its inception due to frequent incidents of paper leakage, bungling and “favouritism” in results.

The evidence procured by The Tribune revealed that officials in the examination branch had adopted a novel modus operandi to favour “special” students. Students from different colleges affiliated to the university would be shown having passed the examination, even if they had scored only four marks. For a lot of cash, the employees would swap the original award list with another one with forged signatures.

In one such incident, a B.Tech (first semester) student of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Ropar (roll number 9802716) had got four marks in his fluid mechanics examination on December 14, 2000. The answer sheet of the student shows he got four marks. However, in the award list he was shown to have scored 26 marks in the same paper.

This is not a lone case. According to official sources, there have been hundreds of such cases.

A number of such cases have been detected by a six-member team formed by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr H.S. Gurm, under the leadership of Mr Amarjit Grewal, Director (Outreach) of the university. The team worked secretly for about seven days and managed to fix the responsibility for the racket on Vicky, an attendant at the examination branch of the university.

According to Mr Grewal, Vicky was caught on Friday when he was leaving the university premises with a bundle of answer sheets and blank award lists concealed under his shirt. According to him, these were to be filled on Saturday and Sunday by some employees who had been conniving with him. The names of the other employees have not been disclosed since the investigation is still on. Vicky had assured a student who had failed and was helping the team that he would get him passed. He had even taken Rs 5,000 from him for the job.

The investigation has revealed that some employees used to take the answer sheets and blank award sheets home with the help of the attendant to manipulate the results.

Mr Grewal said eight to 10 such lists and answer sheets had been recovered from the possession of Vicky. He admitted that the racket had been going on in the university for long.

Dr H.S. Gurm said the university would take action against all those involved in the racket.