College managements cry foul over DOST

​Hyderabad: Alleging serious lapses in the Degree Online Services, Telangana (DOST), the Telangana Government Recognised Degree and PG College Managements' Association has demanded immediate steps to rectify the same.

Association president Ginijala Ramana Reddy and general secretary T Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy on Thursday alleged that tens and thousands of students have been approaching the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) with complaints and asking for the change in the allotment of colleges.

Bhaskar Reddy said that arbitrary allotment of government colleges to the students,  sudden increase in the number of seats in the government colleges, not following the roster system and not allowing students participated in the first phase of web counselling to avail sliding were among the serious lapses.

He further added that wherever web counselling was held in the country, the unfilled seats of SC, ST, BC, minority, physically challenged, defence, NCC and other categories in the first phase were kept vacant till the end of the process. It was only in the last phase when no one from the categories concerned sought admission, the same would be allotted to general category students, he said.

However, violating this norm, at the behest of the Commissioner of Collegiate Education (CCE), seats in all the government colleges had been filled with students in the first phase itself without following the roster system. On the top of it, just a few hours ahead of the announcement of DOST schedule, the CCE had increased seats in the Government Degree Colleges (GDCs), without bothering about the existing infrastructure as per the norms. Adding to this, even those students who had given their first choice to join in a private degree colleges were allocated GDCs, he alleged.

Not enough of all this, students participated in the first phase of web counselling were not allowed to opt sliding to take a transfer to another college in violation of their rights, he pointed out. 

However, now when the pressure is mounting from the students, the sliding is done through backdoors. Because allowing sliding as per the first announcement of the DOST would end up scores of students forced to take admission in the GDCs might seek transfers, he said.