PSEB's diktat: Pay Rs 800 to get Class X, XII certificates

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, March 30

Students and parents of those children who have passed the Classes X and XII exams from the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) in the past two years and have not been provided any board certificates have been in panic mode since yesterday.

There have been reports that the PSEB has given March 31 as a deadline to all students to get their DMCs physically or through the online mode from the portal on a payment of Rs800 per student, failing which they could face problems. As a result, several government and private schools have asked the students to deposit the amount and apply as quickly as possible. While many of them rushed to the PSEB Mohali office, others kept on trying via the portal which kept on crashing through the day.

Finally, the PSEB authorities had to issue a clarification that there is no deadline as such and the students need not panic as the service would continue.

PRO of PSEB Darshan Banur, however, said Rs 800 per student was a mandatory fee. Even the hefty amount being charged for downloading the certificate remained an issue, especially in the government schools where the teachers said the majority of students were not in a position to shell out such a huge amount and they were demanding an exemption to pay it. But the board did not agree.

The issue of downloading certificates has cropped up now as Education Department officials had been saying that there was no need to download the certificates as they could simply take out printouts from DigiLocker any time free of cost and present these wherever needed.

However, many students have claimed that some colleges as well as the passport offices are not accepting the DigiLocker printouts and are seeking a duly signed and attested certificate of the PSEB as a documentary proof.

A government school teacher from Kartarpur area said, “Our students are from humble backgrounds and we cannot even ask them to pay Rs 800 for we know their actual economic position. It is wrong for the board to charge hefty fee from the students, especially for the time when no examinations were held and marks were given on the basis of previous assessments. The board must re-consider levying such a huge fee.”

The principal of a Jalandhar city school said, “No such charges for issuing certificates had ever been taken by the board earlier. The board is setting such a wrong trend. Even if some fee is to be collected, it should be very nominal.”