India, Maharashtra, vijay kumbhar, News, Governance, RTI, Transparency, Civic Issues, Real Estate

Saturday, August 17, 2013

University of Pune penalizes students for no fault of theirs.

It seems that University of Pune (UoP) is fond of harassing its students. Times and again it comes with new ideas to do so. Recently there was a big controversy over its circular on obligating students to not to lodge any complaint or make any representation regarding any matter connected with the institution to press or other outside institution/agency etc. without forwarding the same through the Head of the concerned institution. After lot of criticism UoP had to withdraw that.

Now it has come with another Idea of harassing students for no fault of theirs, and that will add lakhs of rupees in UoP’s treasury also. As per circular, last Date for online application for regular convocation was 31stJuly 2013; however Students can fill the online Application for Regular Convocation from 1st August 2013 to 31st August 2013 with late fee charges. The late fee charges for Non-professional course and for professional course are Rs.180 and Rs.245 respectively. These charges are in addition to regulars charges.

Interestingly there are some results that UoP declared after last date of applying for convocation with regular fee.And now it expects students to pay the late fee charges for no fault of theirs. There is lot of anger amongst students over UoP’s this stand. Why should students be penalized for no fault of theirs? Students are not responsible for late results. How come university declared some results including engineering faculty results exactly a day after the last day of applying for convocation with regular fees? Is it a mere coincidence or a deliberate move to collect additional money from students?.


 Thousands of students apply for convocation every year. This year by way of late fee only UoP may collect lakhs and lakhs of rupees. Normally final year students don’t make any complaints because they want their degrees and are in no mood to have any trouble for amount like two or three hundred rupees. But that does not mean UoP should take advantage of students helplessness.