T'gana Intermediate results fiasco: Over 20 students commit suicide in 10 days after ‘failing’ exams

Over 20 students in Telangana have reportedly committed suicide in the last 10 days owing to the alleged goof up in the declaration of results of intermediate examinations. The exams were conducted during February and March this year and the results were declared on April 18.

Claiming that students have committed suicide reportedly after they either failed in exam or got poor marks, a Congress-led opposition delegation demanded Governor ESL Narasimhan to order a judicial probe into the fiasco.

Meanwhile, Telangana BJP chief K Laxman would observe an indefinite fast in Hyderabad from Monday, demanding a judicial probe into the alleged goof up.

“BJP feels the entire process has to be corrected. So far, 23 students have committed suicide.

BJP wants to take it to the logical conclusion and hence state BJP president K Laxman will observe an indefinite fast from Monday at the party office here, demanding a probe by a sitting High Court judge to fix responsibility,” party’s national general secretary P Muralidhar Rao said.

On the three-member committee of technical experts, appointed by the Telangana government following the furore over Intermediate examination results, the senior BJP leader alleged that there was an effort to shield the guilty.

Hundreds of students and parents took to streets last week to protest the discrepancies in the evaluation process as over 3 lakh students ‘failed’ in the exams.

They have alleged that the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) and Globearena Technologies Pvt Ltd, a firm hired by the board to handle the examination process, have committed blunders in the result declaration.

Some students claimed that they either failed or got poor marks though they had done well in exams and obtained high marks in Intermediate first year.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who held a meeting with officials on the issue a few days ago, had directed them not to charge any fee for re-verfication and re-counting from failed students.

The government has also announced that failed students need not apply for re-counting and re-verification.

Thousands of students, who passed the examination, have also applied for re-verification.

A probe committee formed by the Telangana government has admitted to ‘errors’ in the process. However, the committee pointed out that only a minor percentage of students were affected due to the errors.

Of the nine lakh students who had appeared for the Intermediate-level exams, over 3 lakh failed this year, dipping the pass percentage by two per cent compared to 2018.

According to a News18 report, Gajja Navya, a student of Karimalla Junior College, was declared fail with zero marks in second year Telugu exam, while she had secured 98 in the same subject in the first year. After re-verification, it was found that the student actually received 99 marks but was entered wrong as ‘zeroes’ in the final sheet.