Shradha.Chettri@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: 10.09.2020
The gowns, mortarboards and speeches continue unchanged but what has disappeared from the Delhi University (DU) convocation is the degree. Since 2017, DU graduates are stuck in a paperless limbo as the university has failed to appoint a printing contractor.
This fact came to light in July this year when some graduates moved the Delhi high court for their delayed degrees, and the HC directed the university authorities to confer digital degree certificates.
Two months later, a portal has finally been set up to accept applications for degrees.
Sources in the DU said the previous contract was cancelled after an audit showed the same party had been printing DU degrees for years.
Degree torture: Burden of compliance on DU colleges
However, professor D S Rawat, officiating dean examination, said, “The contract of the old printing company was cancelled because they had made some mistakes. After that, the university could not finalise the tender document.” This year, DU has invited tenders from printers on March 11, June 8 and July 18, but few have shown interest.
“It is true that, earlier, degrees used to be sent to the colleges. All of a sudden, the practice stopped and we still don’t know the reason behind it,” S P Agarwal, principal of Ramanujan College, said.
When colleges raised this issue, a senior university official directed the examination department to resume sending degrees, but nothing changed. Now, the burden of compliance is on the colleges, as they have been told to provide details of all graduates since 2017 for issuing digital certificates. For the 2019 batch, photographs are also needed.
Sarthak Maggon, advocate for the students, said they have been getting many calls from graduates and have made a list of names to present to the HC on Friday. DU has already informed the court that it has received 30,000 applications for digital degrees, but issued only 23 to the petitioners in the case.
Students who need their degree urgently to apply to other universities have suffered the most in these years.
Times View
Who can believe that the administration of one of the top universities in the country failed to find a company that prints degrees in three years? Such an explanation is totally unacceptable. After the recent open book examination fiasco, this is further evidence that DU needs to get its act together. The future of students cannot be trifled with.
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