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Extortion racket on WB campuses? Student unions barred from running admission help desks
West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee has reportedly said that some Trinamool Chhatra Parishad ‘activists’ had also accepted money and promised seats to candidates
Kolkata: Student unions running admission help desks in colleges have been allegedly taking money from candidates and promising them seats, prompting the Mamata Banerjee- led West Bengal government to ban such desks.
West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee said at a meeting of the party’s students’ wing, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) ,on Sunday, that the decision had been prompted by reported cases of extortion of admission seekers by office bearers of students’ unions.
“The education minister clearly told us, that no student union will be allowed to open admission help desk during admission season and no office bearer should accept cash against promises of ensuring admission,” a TMCP office bearer present at the meeting said.
Chatterjee also said at the meeting that he had received reports of a section of TMCP activists accepting cash from candidates and promising them seats at the admission help desks.
“I am clearly telling all of you that the party does not approve such actions. In future if I get any report of anyone accepting cash I will not hesitate to recommend disciplinary against the offending office bearer. So from now onwards neither set up admission help desks nor allow anyone else to do so. Let the admission be left entirely to the online procedure,” the state education minister reportedly said at the TMCP meeting.
Meanwhile, party sources said that since the state government has decided to strip of the students’ representative in students’ unions of all financial powers, by reserving the post of treasurer for a college teacher.
Cases of cash bribes through admission help desks have increased manifold, “and in several cases TMCP leaders have been found guilty of such practices. All these have been reported to the state education minister and hence he has taken a strong stand on Sunday,” the TMCP representative present at the meeting said.
It was learnt that at Sunday’s meeting, Chatterjee said that the state government was also planning to fix the limit of re- admission for a particular student at a particular institute. He said that often a section of students deliberately sought re-admission to remain associated with students’ unions, a practise the government wanted to stop.
