JNUSU chief accuses varsity of 'lying' about agency tasked to hold entrance exam

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president N Sai Balaji has accused the administration of “lying” about the agency which had been tasked to hold the varsity’s online entrance examinations. He said he had filed an RTI seeking details of the tender bids for holding the examination for the academic year 2019-20. He said he had filed the RTI in October and received a reply on December 10.

In the RTI, Balaji had sought to know the name of the agency which was selected for holding the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) online entrance examinations and also asked for the copy of all the bids for the tenders received.

The JNUSU president was told that the information was not available and could not be provided at this point in time as the bid evaluation was under process.

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“After the academic council meeting on December 7, the varsity had said that the National Testing Agency had agreed to conduct the computer-based entrance examinations. Either they were lying then or the RTI reply is a lie,” he said.

Balaji said he had also sought for a copy of an advertisement for the tender bids for holding the online entrance examinations.

“The RTI reply said the tender documents were uploaded on the Central Public Procurement Portal which is in the public domain. But the details have not been uploaded on the website,” he alleged. The JNUSU chief also questioned the varsity over its claims of the paucity of funds.

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“If the varsity is facing a paucity of funds, how is it conducting the online entrance examinations which require a huge amount of funds?” he said.

He claimed the cost of holding online entrance exams at more than 72 centres was anywhere between Rs 8 crore to Rs 11 crore, whereas the cost of holding the examinations using paper was around Rs 3 crore.