Rajasthan government with a certain push from HRD Ministry has decided to stop attestation of off campus centres of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (Bits institute). The main institute of BITS in is Pilani, Rajasthan which has been getting proper degrees, diplomas and all certificates attested from the state government. But from now the off campus institutes of BITS in Goa and Hyderabad won’t be enjoying this privilege.
This can be seen as the output of a logger headed situation between BITS Pilani and HRD Ministry’s higher education regulator. The case was simple, as on 9th November, last year, BITS Pilani and 9 other deemed universities were asked to shut down their off campus because of their non-permitted existence. This lead to direct violation of Deemed University Regulations after which BITS Pilani went and knocked Delhi High Court’s door.
Raj Hans Upadhyay, the additional chief secretary of Rajasthan government asked Centre’s higher education secretary, V S Oberoi to clarify on this situation. He later got a response which said, “The state government received the ministry’s response last week in which it has flagged that two off-campus centres are unapproved by the UGC, implying that attestation could be inappropriate.”
The major drawback of this new decision will be for students who would want to seek admissions and jobs in abroad. For all these students, their academic documents will not be authenticated without government attestation.
S C Sivasubramanian, the acting Registrar of BITS-Pilani, said “We are aware of the problem being faced by the students. The Court has asked UGC to not take any coercive action. Since the matter is sub-juiced, we have requested the Rajasthan government to continue with the status quo and attest documents.”
In 2008 and 2004, BITS-Pilani had established full-fledged campuses in Hyderabad and Goa respectively. There are almost 600 to 700 students presently pursuing undergraduate programmes in each of the 2 off-campus centres.
