College help desks will not be allowed: Education minister

The Mamata Banerjee government has completely banned help desks that student unions set up in colleges ostensibly to assist admission-seekers but are often allegedly accused of taking bribes from freshers and forcing them to join the ruling party on campus.

Echoing similar thoughts on Sunday, state Education minister Partha Chatterjee said that help desks will not be allowed in colleges to be formed by the students' unions.

He added that the department will not tolerate this and the registration of any student found to be involved in the matter will be cancelled.

Jaya Dutta, president Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad has been asked to look into the matter, he maintained.

It may be mentioned that to stop corruption involved in college admission, the Education department has introduced online admissions. There are allegations that some college unions take lakhs of rupees to provide admission to those who fail to meet the cut-off marks through the back door while genuine students fail to get seats.

Often clashes between students take place over control of the union and the Education department had cancelled the students' union in some colleges in Malda recently where such clashes had happened.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said time and again that no indiscipline among students will be tolerated and stern action will be taken against those found guilty. She had even spoken about apolitical students' union like the one in St Xavier's University.

Partha Chatterjee said that allegations of taking money from students manning the help desks in two colleges in central Kolkata and some in North 24 Parganas have been received by the department. "The Education department keeps a tab on these matters and has received complains. Any body found guilty will be punished and no one will be spared," he said.

He added: "Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wants peaceful atmosphere in colleges and high quality education. We are all working to implement her dreams and anything which vitiates the environment will be dealt with seriously," he remarked.

Help desks are set up by students to assist freshers to select subjects or manage queues to deposit fees and the like. But allegations are made against students of some colleges that in the guise of helping out the students, they actually take money from those who fail to comply with the cut-off marks.

In an attempt to speed up the admission process and make it more transparent, the state government has made online admission mandatory in all colleges from this year. The offline system stands abolished. The merit list, too, will be published online.

It may be recalled that Chatterjee, who had been the general secretary of the students' union in Ashutosh College in the 1970s, had once said that it was the responsibility of the students' unions to organise college socials and bring out college magazines without any role in the admission process.

Jaya Dutta said she would instruct the TMCP unions to scrap the help desks and maintained that anybody found to be harassing the freshers will be pulled up.