JOIN USRamdas unearths 'marks doctoring' scam
The decision came after the minister paid a surprise visit to the university on Wednesday morning and found discrepancies in awarding marks.
Ramdas announced that he would start visiting private medical colleges too, to check malpractices. The minister said that several students had complained that the evaluators demanded money for giving extra marks. The money was fixed according to the number of marks the student required to pass the examination. Ramdas asked the registrar (evaluation) Dr G S Venkatesh to show the mark sheets (attached to the answerscripts) of 14 students (whose list the minister already had). He then pointed out the discrepancies in the marks.
For instance, a student from Al-ameen Medical College had got his one mark in question number one changed to four marks. The marks was overwritten on the marks sheet.
When he sought information about the evaluators responsible for this, both the vice-chancellor and registrar were unable to blame any one of the evaluators.
"I came to know that the evaluators in RGUHS demanded Rs one lakh for giving one mark, two lakh for two marks and so on. This is happening in medical, dental, post-graduation, Ayurveda, paramedical and other courses," Ramdas said. In some cases, the marks are overwritten or erased using whitener and then changed. This posed a serious issue, as students who pass out through such means would put people's lives at risk when they become doctors, he said.
Currently, the examination section has staff on permanent and contract basis. The minister felt contract staff could not be made accountable and the department could not control them. As a result, they could easily indulge in malpractices.
Exam centres
Henceforth, all nursing and paramedical course examinations will take place in medical colleges having full-fledged infrastructure. The minister said that many nursing and paramedical colleges did not have mobile phone jammers, CCTVs, the required number of invigilators, security and infrastructure to providing seating for students. Hence, he would soon issue a notification to RGUHS to cancel such examination centres, the minister said.
He said that the same invigilators and squads went to inspect the infrastructure in the colleges for two to three years in a row. Hence, he suggested that the university set up third party teams to cross-check the findings of the local inspection committees.
Staff, seat discrepancies
Although the university had adopted biometric system of attendance, 38 out of 125 permanent staff and 25 out of 119 contract staff were absent in the varsity. Ramdas observed that there was no Cadet and Recruitment (C&R) rule guidelines in the university and it adopted the C&R rules of Mysore Medical College.
Three staff members in the university were from private medical colleges, who were working in the university since 2001.
What's more, they had been promoted to deputy registrar posts. When the minister sought their files, they could not be produced as the files were 'missing'. All the 1,300 computers in the university office have been rented for five years. Variations in recommended intake of students were also observed in at least 18 medical colleges - a majority of them in Bangalore.
No new probe panel
Ramdas said that he was not forming any new enquiry committee. "There have been several committees like Arora committee, CBI report and internal sub-committee reports, which had recommended action against certain officials. I will go through the recommendations and take action accordingly," he said.
The minister said that he was displeased with the judiciary. "While the department has lot of issues to tackle, most of the officials are busy in High Court half of the year. We have over 2,100 cases pending, of which only 600 have been settled. While I am proud of the judiciary, there is lot of interference from them," he said.