'Big fine on students giving up seats before mop-up'

Contemplating a slew of measures to crack down on the multi-crore seat-blocking racket in admission to professional courses, the high-level committee on Thursday decided to recommend a hefty penalty for students who surrender their allotted seats after the mop-up round of seat allotment process.

The committee held its first meeting on Thursday and resolved to recommend hefty penalty on students who surrender seats before the mop-up round starting from the 2020-21 academic year.

Interestingly until now, the surrendered seats would be transferred to college managements where seat-blocking is suspected to happen.

“We will decide on the exact amount (penalty) in the next meeting and send it to the department concerned for approval before submitting the report to the government,” one of the committee members told DH.

Some of the members even suggested recommending restriction on surrendering of seats soon after the mop-up round. However, considering that there will be genuine students, and to avoid inconveniences to them, it was decided to go with only the penalty.