The Comptroller and Auditor General in its latest report, a copy of which was placed on floor of the State Legislative Assembly in Jammu on Friday, pointed out that of the 33 research projects undertaken by the university during 2002-08, only three had been completed. While there was a time overrun of one to three years in respect to 14 projects, there was no data available in respect to nine of remaining 16 ongoing projects. Three of the research projects had been left midway during 2003-08, the report pointed out.

Significantly, Prof Amitabh Matoo had been the vice chancellor of the university during this period. He was awarded Padma Shree for his contribution in the field of education last year.

The situation was no better even in monitoring the research programmes, CAG said, adding that of the 554 scholars registered for pursing PhD between April 1998 and October 2003, only 306 scholars had submitted their thesis up to January 2008. Of the remaining 248 scholars, while 241 had yet to submit their thesis, the registration of seven scholars had been cancelled.

The worst had been that of the 306 scholars who had submitted their thesis, the work of only 258 had been accepted, while those of 48 received two months to five years back had been pending approval, the report pointed out.

Not only this, the university, as envisaged in the Tenth five year plan, failed to introduce skill oriented education at college level so as to enable students to get into professional fields. In this connection, the Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out that as per the plan, the universities were required to make their three-year structure more flexible to allow students pursue both degree and utility-oriented certificate/diploma programmes together so that they have a passport to employment and a better life.

However, the scrutiny revealed that it did not adopt the approach to widen the knowledge base of students and instead continued to provide them traditional education, it pointed out, rejecting the Jammu University Registrar’s plea that it had already laid emphasis on skill oriented education by opening new streams in post graduate departments besides courses in BCA/BPEd which also fetch employment to students. These “do not fulfil the conditions laid down in the Tenth Plan as courses run by university cannot be pursued by students in addition to the normal subjects where the courses provided are of 2-3 years’ duration,” it pointed out.

Apart from this, there were also delays in declaration of results at all levels depriving students not only of planning and pursuing further studies towards employability, but also reflecting on the inefficiency in the functioning of the university. Elaborating, it pointed out that while there were delays ranging from 23 to 64 days in declaration of results in respect of under-graduate examinations held during 2002-07, these ranged between 11 to 274 days in respect of post graduate examinations. The examination results of various post graduate courses held between June 2004 and September 2007 had not been declared as of Januray 2008 even after 100 to 1,270 days of their due date, the CAG report pointed out, adding that the university statutes, however, provide for declaration of results not later than six weeks of respective dates of termination of examinations.

Not only this, in order to familiarise students and the faculty in the field of journalism and mass communication and also to explore collaboration arrangements covering students and faculty, an exchange tour was arranged to China by the India-China Alliance Centre in October 2007 at an expenditure of Rs 8.70 lakh. However, the CAG scrutiny revealed that neither the members sent on tour to China were related to the subject nor was any student included in the tour, defeating the intended purpose.

It also failed to set up Jyotir Vigyan (Astronomy) department despite the release of Rs 15 lakh by University Grants Commission in July 2001. However, when UGC directed it to refund the money along with penal interest in April 2006, the university registrar said that the university council did not approve setting up of the department. The university should have obtained approval of its council before approaching UGC for permission to set up the department, the CAG added.

Even the incidence of revision of results after revaluation was very high indicating lack of proper supervision in valuation of answer scripts. Of the 8,631 applications received during 2002-07 for revaluation in respect of post graduate courses, 43 per cent students were declared successful and 11 per cent candidate already declared successful improved their percentage. The situation was no different even in respect of under-graduate courses.