Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 25: Condem-ning the decision of the State Govt to shift the students of University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) from the existing institution to GCET Janglote, NPP chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh has cautioned the helmsmen to desist from such irrational and whimsical move.
“It was highly unfair that the students who were admitted to UIET on the basis of merit in pursuance of notification issued by the University of Jammu were being disowned by the same university for unexplained reasons,” Singh said in the press conference.
Singh said that the affected students had joined the UIET course in University of Jammu after leaving reputed colleges outside the State. Several students, he said had to forego the huge capitation fee paid in outside colleges only for the reason that their own home university which offered B.Tech course was accredited as A+ grade by NAAC. The issuance of an order therefore to change the very nomenclature of institute and of the course and to shift them to GCET Janglote was therefore, extremely shocking and unacceptable and amounted to betrayal of the students.
It amounted to a fraud committed upon the meritorious students who were lured in the name of A+ accredited institute and subsequently disowned directing them to join an institute which did not have the basic AICTE certificate, he maintained.
Justifying the cause of the aggrieved protesting students, Singh called upon the Higher Education Deptt to review their decision as the careers of the students were at stake. He called upon the University authorities not to submit to the dictates of the Govt over the issue and preserve its autonomous character at all costs.
Describing further the Education Deptt’s order of takeover of the control of the said institute from University and its re-designation as GCET Janglote, Singh decried it as an unwarranted encroachment upon the autonomy of the Jammu University. Attributing the unwholesome move of takeover of the said institute from university by the people in power to their vested political interests, Singh said that it would only damage the credibility of Govt besides adversely impacting upon the careers of the meritorious candidates.