Students of Regional College of Management protest near the Assembly on Friday. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, March 7: Students of the Regional College of Management (Autonomous) today took to the streets demanding their degree certificates from the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT).

The students of four batches of MBA and MCA — 2009-2011, 2010-2012, 2011-2013 and 2012-2014 — of the college alleged that they had not received their original degree certificates from the varsity.

Alleging that the absence of an original certificates was creating problems for them while applying for jobs, the students had launched a hunger strike from February 11 that continued till yesterday.

“We had sent an appeal letter to the technical education department, chancellor, BPUT vice-chancellor, UGC and the chief minister too. It’s strange how everyone is ignoring our plea,” said Pratap, a student.

“We had met minister Pratap Keshari Deb too. While the government was busy announcing schemes and making promises for elections it had very easily chosen to ignore the demands of the students who are the future of the state,” said Poonam.

The students said that they had done everything possible to foil the attempts of the college to “trap” more students. The students said they would not allow any admissions this season if the management did not solve the problem.

The problem began when management college was granted autonomy in 2009 by UGC and began admitting students for MBA with its own set of guidelines.

The college also went ahead to admit students who had not cleared the OJEE, thus flouting the BPUT norms.

The BPUT authorities have since stopped issuing certificates to the college saying that Regional College of Management had admitted students without adhering to BPUT guidelines.

“If the BPUT is aware of all this, why is it allowing the college to cheat students year after year. Who is responsible for it?” asked a student.

Authorities of the college said that they were talking to the BPUT officials to sort out the problem.