Maharashtra governor meets CM on Mumbai University results mess, ask for results of papers checked

The decisions were taken in a review meeting between Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and other senior officials at Raj Bhavan on Friday.

Wary of the chaos that will ensue if the results of the University of Mumbai (MU) are delayed further, the state government on Friday asked the university to declare the results for papers that have been assessed so far. Further, directives were issued to start the re-evaluation process immediately to avoid delay in issuing revised mark sheets.

MU has been asked to extend the deadline to submit applications for admission to post-graduate courses. (ht)

The decisions were taken in a review meeting between Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and other senior officials at Raj Bhavan on Friday.

Moreover, MU has been asked to extend the deadline to submit applications for admission to post-graduate courses. The state higher and technical education department will issue a notification to all universities to allow provisional admission to candidates based on a copy of the online result. The academic calendar will also be revised.

Vinod Tawde, state higher and technical education minister, who was also present, said MU’s Board of Examination and Evaluation has been asked to check if some results can be declared without waiting for the entire assessment process to be completed for each course.

“The university can declare results for a course by holding back a maximum of 10% of the unchecked papers. If the exam board allows, the university can declare almost 96% results,” said Tawde, but refused to reveal a deadline for completion of assessment. Of 477 results, MU declared 354 results till August 17.

Sources privy to the development said that delay is likely to extend as there were many technical glitches. For instance, the varsity didn't have a standard mechanism to assign unique numbers to the question papers.

HT on August 13 had reported how state government had opposed the idea of adopting online assessment of answer papers which is called — On-Screen Marking System (OMS) in one go and advised the university vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh to introduce the system gradually in phases.

In addition, the state higher and technical department has been asked to issue notifications to all the universities except MU to give provisional admissions to students based on a copy of the online result. It is to ask them to postpone the dates of registration and allocate seats over and above the quota to MU students.

The university is currently facing flak for unprecedented delay in declaring results of most of the courses risking future of thousands of students

“A result grievance redressal cell will be set up by the university to resolve issues,” said Tawde.

The university's Board of Examination and Evaluation, in a recent meeting, decided to partially declare the results of courses whose 90% papers have been assessed. “Declaring results with missing data is not good. We are speeding up the process,” said Arjun Ghatule, in-charge director of the board.

Calling it a scam, Shiv Sena has demanded a thorough probe into the delay and appointing administrator for the MU. Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray said, “A harassment case should be filed against all those who are responsible for this mess,” he said.

With inputs from Musab Qazi