disgruntlement brews at HRD official’s darbar Patna University student Vijay Kumar (third from left) at Anjani Kumar Singh’s janata darbar on Friday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, July 22: Students of Patna University today knocked the door of human resource development (HRD) department’s principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh to lodge their complaints on academic and non-academic issues.

Two students of Patna College today reached the janata darbar of Singh and complained against the selection process of songs for next year’s Bihar Divas celebrations.

The two students — Prabhat Kumar and Gunjan Kumar —claimed to the HRD principal secretary that “favouritism and unfair approach” was being adopted in the selection of songs for next year’s centenary celebrations for the state. The Bihar Geet would be one of the highlights at Bihar Divas function next year. According to the students, a song cannot be judged on the basis of its lyrics, as there is a difference between a song and a poem.

Prabhat said: “Most of songs which the department had received are poems and not songs. A song should be judged only by eminent personalities.”

Singh, however, objected to the claims of the two students and said the selection of songs has been done after fair evaluation.

The two boys had come to the janata darbar on the plea that they wanted to know whether the song they had submitted for Bihar Geet was selected. However, they raised the issue of “favouritism” in song selection process only after they came to know that their song was not selected by the panel of jury.

It may be recalled that the state HRD department has placed on open advertisement, inviting entries for Bihar Geet.

Anyone from the country or elsewhere were can send entries and the winner will receive a cash award of Rs 1 lakh. Singh said: “The lyrics of the state song should give a feel of the quintessential flavour of Bihar soil.”

Meanwhile, the HRD principal secretary also received a complaint from another student of Patna University, Vijay Kumar, who said that none of the teachers from Patna University History Department were willing to enrol him as a research scholar for PhD as he belongs to a backward caste and most of the teachers of Patna University history department belongs to upper caste. Listening to the student’s problem, the principal secretary said there is no basis in the student’s argument that he has not been allowed to pursue PhD because he belonged to a backward caste.

Complaints relating to Teacher Eligibility Test, college registration and other issues also poured in at the principal secretary’s janata darbar. Singh said around 25 lakh forms have been sold for Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) which is much beyond the expectations.

The HRD principal secretary also stated that the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) is one of the biggest examinations the state government is holding in terms of number of applications and examinees appearing for the competition.

The State HRD has the experience of holding examinations where students where around nine to ten lakhs students take the test but the TET will be the biggest examination in the history of Bihar.

The date of examination will be announced only after the scrutiny of all the applications is being done. The process for preparing admits cards will start only after all forms are scrutinised. Singh said: “It is the biggest affair the state government is going to hold.” The HRD minister also stated that autonomy of medical colleges and engineering colleges will not be hampered once these colleges comes under Aryabhatta Knowledge University (AKU).