The Kashmiri students who have been selected for various courses under Prime Minister’s Scholarship Scheme (PMSS) in Indian colleges after being counseled by All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) have been denied admission putting their career at stake.
According to GNS, the AICTE conducted counseling of students in the first week of September at Srinagar’s SP College for various courses. The students, after being counseled, were allotted seats in different colleges of India. “The students were selected in Engineering, MBBS, BBA and in other general courses,” reliable sources told GNS.
Meanwhile, after being selected, the students went to their respective colleges to get admitted. “However, the ten selected students from Kashmir, were denied admission by the colleges despite being provided with admission letters,” sources said.The colleges which denied admissions to the Kashmir students include Chandigarh Government College, Guru Nanak College Tamil Nadu, Rani Durga Wati Saraswati College Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka Arts Darwada College, Swift Technical College Patiala Punjab, DAV College Chandigarh and Vijay Nagar Institute of Medical Sciences Karnataka.The sources informed GNS that out of ten students who have been denied admission three students have been selected for BBA, one for MBBS, one for Engineering and five for general courses.
Azra Hamid Mir, who was selected in MBBS in open category at Vijay Nagar Institute of Medical Sciences, was denied admission by said college by stating ‘college has no correspondence with AICTE and any scheme’.Similarly, Aamir Yousuf, who was also selected in open category at Guru Nanak College, Tamil Nadu, was refused admission by authorities stating ‘the session in the college is already over and exam has started’. Another student, Mir Jasir Hassan, was refused admission by Karnataka Arts Darward College, by stating ‘the college has refused admission in absence of advance payment’.Caught in distress, the students want admission ‘as soon as possible’ in the institutions where they have been selected while the parents question authorities by saying: “If you can’t manage things, then why are befooling Kashmiri students.” The parents say the career of their wards has been put on stake and their precious time is being wasted.On October 08, the Special Secretary to Government Higher Education Department, Naseer Naqash, wrote a letter to chairman AICTE asking him to make adequate arrangements for admissions of the ten candidates who were allotted seats after ‘proper counseling’ by AICTE in various colleges of the country.
The letter reads: “Since the selected candidates have been put to great inconvenience, therefore you are requested to make adequate arrangements for their admissions so that one precious academic year of these students does not get waste.” The copy of the letter has also been sent to MHRD.“We have written to MHRD and so far there has been no reply. But, I will again look into it tomorrow as this is the matter related to the career of our students,” the State’s Higher Education Minister, Muhammad Akbar Lone, told GNS.
When GNS contacted chairman AICTE, he refused to comment. (GNS)