HYDERABAD: Inordinate delay and negligence of Osmania University (OU) authorities is causing inconvenience to the students aspiring to get into Doctor of Philosophy Course (PhD) in the varsity.
Though PhD notification was issued way back in August 2014, the admission process has not been completed till now making more than 7,000 students who have qualified and waiting for PhD admissions suffer.
While the PhD entrance examination was held in January 2015 and results were announced in June 2015, OU authorities took more than a year to call for presentation of synopsis. Even after the synopsis was presented by students in July 2016, after two years of issuing notification, the process came to a grinding halt, as some students approached HC asking for cancellation of admissions. Following some student’s plea, HC stayed PhD admission process and ordered OU to present all the related details.
“Students who did not qualify the PhD entrance demanded OU authorities to decrease the qualifying marks. Even after decreasing qualifying marks from 40 to 30 for SC/STs, 45 to 35 for BCs and 50 to 40 for OCs, they did not qualify.
Ironically, the same students approached HC to cancel admissions, saying merit is compromised in case of PhD admissions. “While those who did not get admissions are using all means to stop PhD admissions, OU authorities are not taking any steps to complete the process,” said Ch Yellaswamy, an Economics post graduate, who had already qualified NET and presented his synopsis.
There are thousands of students like Yellaswamy who are eagerly awaiting the PhD admissions and have spent two years in the process.
More pathetic is the fact that even students who have qualified for Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Fellowship, among others are kept waiting for the PhD admissions process to pursue higher studies and get scholarship.
“Getting selected for NET or CSIR fellowship is not an easy thing. In spite of succeeding there, these meritorious students are put to agony due to utter negligence of OU officials. If PhD admissions were completed earlier, there would be no possibility for any legal issues. Why did OU officials take two years to call for synopsis. Even in Court, we suspect that OU officials are not pursuing the case whole-heartedly. Therefore we students who want to get PhD admissions get completed, impleaded in the Court on Friday, to vacate the stay as lives of thousands of students are dependent on it,” said RN Shankar, an Economics post graduate.
When contacted, a senior official of OU said that as the HC asked for more details about the admissions, the case was not finalised though it came for hearing four days ago. As the case is again due for hearing within next ten days, all the further details will be provided to HC.
“As the issue is in Court we cannot make any comment now. But once HC gives an order, further procedure in case of the admissions will be taken up according to Court’s orders, without delay,” stated a senior official.