New admissions for Afghan students unlikely

Vishakhapatanam: Uncertainty prevails over new admissions for Afghan students, who have been sanctioned scholarships by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) for the new academic year. ICCR sanctioned scholarship to 1,000 students to pursue various undergraduate, post graduate and professional courses, except for MBBS and BDS. Of them 300 would be enrolled in Hyderabad, Warangal, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada.

“We have sent admission offers to 150 students in Afghanistan and only 10 responded so far. I presume the other 140 students might not have received the letters and the 10 who received could have dropped the idea of taking admission,’’ said Prof E Dhananjay Rao, dean of international students affairs.

The dean told this correspondent that he had found out from the students that the new Taliban government was allowing students to enroll only in Pakistan, Iran and China.

“We are ready to sanction the scholarship as announced earlier but the Afghanistan government has to take the decision to send the students to India,’’ said director general of ICCR, Dinesh K Patnaik.

Talking to this correspondent, Patnaik said the government was also worried about the students whose visas would be expiring shortly. There are about 2,200 students in India and of them 550 were enrolled in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. In Andhra University 130 students, including 30 women, are enrolled in various courses and some of the students have completed their courses and their visas will be expiring by end of this month.

“We have written to the Union home ministry to issue longer visas to students so that they can stay in India after their studies till the situation improves in their home country,’’ Patnaik said.

Sources said many students whose visas were expiring, have applied for emergency visas for themselves and their family members while others are trying to seek political asylum in US, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands.