Several Delhi University colleges are not following the criteria required for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes admissions.
According to members of the Central Enabling Committee for SC/ST, Hindu College and Hansraj College are not following the data (number of seats, students to be admitted and approximate percentage) on admission criteria provided by the varsity. Despite repeated attempts, the college administration could not be contacted.
The Central Enabling Committee was formed by the vice chancellor to ensure smooth admission for SC/ST students.
“I took a round of Shri Ram College of Commerce, and the admission is process is going on smoothly there. But Hansraj and Hindu Colleges are not following the CD of data provided by the varsity and keeping the cut-offs for SC/ST students very high. So there are hardly any admissions under these categories,” said Dhaniram, member of the committee.
He said Hansraj College is also asking for Additional Eligibility Criteria (AEC) from SC/ST students applying for Hindi (H) course. “As per norms, colleges cannot ask for AEC from reserved category students,” he added. The DU had scrapped AEC for all categories this year, and admissions are to be based on cut-offs.
Similarly, Dyal Singh College (evening) is also asking for AEC for SC/ST in a few courses. “My son had the required cut-off percentage in the second list. But the college is asking for 80 per cent in English as AEC. My son had 79 per cent and was refused admission on Monday,” said a worried father.
Another issue faced by several SC/ST candidates is of documents. “There are instances where the student does not have an SC/ST certificate on his or her name; however, they have their father’s reserved category certificate. In such cases, we are asking colleges to give provisional admissions,” said S K Sagar, another member of the committee. Such issues were also reported from Satyawati College (evening), Ambedkar College and others.
According to rules, SC/ST admissions have to be given on the actual intake rather than the sanctioned strength. “If there is an increase in the number of student intake in general category, a similar rise has to be made for reserved category students. The same system was followed last year. It is too early to say if colleges are flouting this rule,” said Sagar.
Several teachers said that admitting reserved category students on the actual intake will lead to four-fold admissions than the sanctioned strength.
According to Dhaniram, while each college is bound to set up a teachers’ panel to check the SC/ST admissions, most remain only on paper.