HRD ministry puts admissions in educational institutes on hold

The ministry, however, made it clear that only issuing of offer letters to students for admission has been put on hold and not the entire admission process.

Updated on: Apr 9, 2007, 20:58:46 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Virtually putting admissions in educational institutions on hold, the HRD ministry has directed the educational institutions in the country not to issue admissions cards to students but to continue with the admission process.

In a clarification issued on Monday, the ministry said only issuing of offer letters to students for admission has been put on hold and not the entire admission process. "The institutes can run their business as usual for admissions," a senior ministry official said.

The ministry's direction is applicable not only to IIMs but to all higher education institutions in the country. "It is a general policy direction," said a senior ministry official.

This means that entrance examination, interviews and short-listing of candidates will go ahead as per the schedule listed by different education institutions but the final admissions they will have to wait for the court's verdict.

Ministry officials said that they have told the institutes that they would get back to them at the earliest, anticipating an early hearing by the Supreme Court on the issue.

IIM Ahemdabad Director Bakul Dholakia, said, "I have nothing to say at this point of time," even as IIMs stated the repercussions on the issue. "Delay in admissions can derail the entire academic session," commented an IIM official. The board of IIM Directors is expected to meet soon to discuss the challenges put forth by the ministry's direction. Another IIM director, however, said, they have no option but to follow the government direction to stop admissions till the stalemate ends.

For IITs, the situation is less critical as the ministry has given them a go ahead to finalise the admission process. "The process as per the earlier direction of the ministry would continue as the entrance examination results are expected only in May," a ministry official explained.

The HRD ministry expects that the Supreme Court stay would be vacated soon and is expected to file a petition to get the stay vacated in the next two days. "Final touches are being given to the ministry's petition," an official said. The government on Monday consulted NDA parties on the issue in a bid to formulate political consensus on this critical issue.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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