Last-minute jitters: JNU looks for private player to declare online results

NEW DELHI: The minutes of the executive council meeting of JNU accessed by TOI on Friday revealed that the university administration plans to outsource the declaring of the online test results to another private organisation and not the National Testing Agency (NTA). NTA, however, is tasked with conducting the first-ever online test.
The minutes of the meeting held on April 3 states that the vice-chancellor apprised the council that NTA has declined to do tendering work pertaining to declaration of result and online registration in respect of JRF NET qualified candidates.The VC then constituted a committee to identify the agency to be awarded the task.
“The committee approached NIC, a central government department, with the request to take up the task. However, NIC has expressed its inability to do so,” the minutes of the meeting said.
Lack of time and planning have put the JNU administration in a fix as the online registration for open candidates went live on March 15, and is closing on April 15. The registration for JRF NET qualified candidates was to be initiated at the earliest.
The council approved the recommendations of the committee to award the work to a private firm for Rs 20.75+GST per application.
Meanwhile, JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) has questioned the move. The union, which has been against the online test from the beginning, said the JNU Act statutorily mandates that any decision taken in relation with admissions be done by the standing committee on admission and academic council, which was violated in this case.
Questioning the reason behind giving the contract to a new vendor, JNUSU asked if deprivation points given to the marginalised sections students would be assured, and was there any guarantee that the answer key now with two private vendors won’t be misused.
Despite repeated attempts made by TOI, members of the JNU administration did not respond to its queries.