Kochi: In a farce move, NRI' to take NRK' spots in engineering colleges
The NRI in the new form allows all that was given under NRK.
Kochi: It is old wine in older bottle. The agreement between Kerala Self-Financing Engineering College Managements Association (KSFECMA) and the State Government this year deletes the term Non-Resident Keralite (NRK) which was introduced last year and replaces it with the old NRI quota admission.
The NRK word was inserted last year to circumvent the AICTE stipulations on NRI quota that only 5 percent students who are children of NRIs can be admitted, after Justice James Committee insisted on adhering to AICTE stipulations in this regard. However, the NRI in the new form allows all that was given under NRK with James Committee looking the other way.
In Kerala NRI quota has gone up to 15 percent, making it convenient for the managements to collect higher fee in an additional 10 percent seats. The AICTE has reserved the NRI seats for sons and daughters of NRIs while under NRK and the new NRI quota, dependents of NRIs can get in to the seats. There are several cases where even students without any lineage to an NRI sneak into NRI seat, which is set to happen this year also. The specialty of NRI seat is that the student need not appear for or qualify the entrance examination conducted by the Commissioner of Entrance Examination.
Certificate issued by the Indian Embassy in respective countries to prove NRI status also has to be submitted along with application which is also skipped in many cases.
It was after the Justice James Committee intervention last year that several institutions remitted '3 lakh to AICTE for general category and '2 lakh for minority institutions to secure its approval to take NRI quota students.
The AICTE stipulates that the competent authority for admissions to NRI category shall be the same as for regular admissions. The AICTE approval handbook also stipulates that “the competent authority for admissions shall fetch list of technical institutions who have sought approval from the council, from the AICTE web-portal.” Interestingly the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations (CEE) doesn’t do this nor have any role in Kerala for NRI quota admission.
It is pointed out that as per the AICTE regulation, parents should remit fee for the student from their NRI accounts only through bank drafts which is also allegedly violated by many colleges.