Ranchi, April 7: Information management (IM) students of the Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS) are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
An All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) team has decided to visit the institute during their tour of the eastern region between April 20 to May 5. Students are beginning to hope that their prayers for affiliation might be answered.
Three XISS students went to Delhi on Saturday to meet AICTE officials and discuss the issue of affiliation for the IM course. XISS director Beni Ekka and head of the IM department S.R. Roy left for Delhi on Monday to participate in the talks. According to the students, Rs 50,000 has been paid to the AICTE as inspection charges.
Ekka and Roy are expected to return on Thursday.
A student said: “According to the latest information, the money has been paid to the AICTE officials and they have decided to visit our institute. A team is due to visit the eastern region and our institute is on their priority list. We are hopeful that the problem will be solved. We are keeping our fingers crossed.”
Agitating students will also go to the Calcutta-based regional headquarters of AICTE. Another student said: “Our representatives will be in Calcutta to finalise the dates with the officials for the visit. We have asked them to convince the officials to make the visit as soon as possible. There has already been so much delay.”
Students said till then they would not allow any of classes inside the campus. “The strike will continue.”
IM students have decided to boycott the examinations which are due to begin soon. “The examinations are to start from April 20. However, no student of the information management department will be sit for the examinations. We find it useless. Nothing will happen till the affiliation is granted,” a student said. Students, however, said they would not stop students of other departments from appearing for their examinations.
“Why should we stop other students from sitting the examinations? We do not want them to get into any kind of a trouble. They have helped us and have stood by us during the crisis. We are grateful to them for that,” said a student.
But, the students have decided not to allow any admissions to take place in the institute. April 13 is the date for admissions.
A student said: “We are not going to let any admissions take place in any of the faculties, especially the information management department.”
“We do not want other youngsters to get into this mess. Until our affiliation is finalised, we will make sure that no one enters the campus seeking admission,” students said.
