Bhubaneswar: The Higher Education (HE) department Tuesday directed the Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC) to cancel the admission of 28 students on the ground of furnishing fake Person with Disability (PwD) certificates. Deputy Director of the Higher Education department Rajesh Kumar Sahoo, in a letter to the General Manager (GM) of OCAC, wrote that 28 students of Bhadrak Autonomous College had taken admission by producing fake PwD certificates for the sessions 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22. He also directed the OCAC GM to update the list of students in the SAMS portal after cancelling the admission of those with fake certificates.
Earlier, the Odisha government had asked all degree colleges to verify disability certificates of students admitted under the PwD quota in the last three academic sessions. The HE department had taken this step in the wake of fake admissions in the said college. The principals were asked to verify and authenticate the disability certificates of such students.
In order to detect such malpractices elsewhere, the principals of the colleges across Odisha were directed to verify the disability certificates of the physically handicapped and orthopedically handicapped (PH-OH) students through the Chief District Medical Officers (CDMOs) of the districts concerned.
The colleges were directed to immediately cancel the admissions of erring students, if any, and lodge FIRs against such students.