Hyderabad: Sri Vasavi college's principal says Rs 2 lakh in bribe paid
Hyderabad: The Telangana Inter-mediate Board has found itself in trouble after students of Sri Vasavi College were denied the inter exam hall tickets. The college’s management on Wednesday levelled allegations of corruption and bribery against the Board — a day after its officials had declared that criminal charges would be sought against the college management for “cheating students”.
The Board claims an entirely new management had took over the Sri Medha College at Vanasthalipuram this academic year. The erstwhile college’s name was changed to Sri Vasavi by its owner Srinivas – he used to run the ‘Navodaya College’ at Suryapet which was shut down.
Srinivas, it’s alleged, did not complete the required paperwork for the new college and was left without official recognition. But Srinivas, who is also the principal of Sri Vasavi college claims hall tickets were denied by the Board because “bribes were not paid”.
“I had applied for permissions in June after which inspection was done and permission given. However for the university affiliation, they demanded a bribe. I gave Rs 2 lakh but they wanted Rs 5 lakh more. I refused and they made me run around for months,” he said.
Intermediate Board Secretary A. Ashok maintains the fault is with Sri Vasavi’s owner. The official said the fees too was collected from students while knowing that certain permissions were pending.
We would have intervened and taken action had students approached the Board when practical exams had not been held a few weeks ago. The Board’s secretary has instead appealed to students and parents to carry out background checks of institutes before admissions.
Parents plead for hall tickets
The over 250 students from Sri Vasavi college continued their protests against the college and the state Intermediate Board for the second day in a row. The students were joined by their parents and some student unions too as demonstrations took place in front of the college on Wednesday morning and later, outside the Secretariat.
R. Choudhary, a student, said they were all under the impression they would receive the hall-tickets a day or two before the exam. “We had no idea about the pending Board affiliation formalities. We were told that hall-tickets would be issued by the time of exams. That did not happen,” he said.
The parents who had joined the protesters appealed to the government to “settle scores with college management later” and issue the hall tickets. Meanwhile, deputy Chief Minister and state education minister Kadiyam Srihari said the affected students will be allowed to write the advanced supplementary exams in May, as well as the Eamcet.
He assured the students there would be no break in their academic year. Intermediate Board officials said the students would be allowed to write exams from the Hayatnagar government junior college.
