Where’s the gold, asks varsity gold-medallist

During its annual convocation ceremony on Saturday, Mumbai University handed over a gold-plated medal instead of a pure gold medal to MA Economics topper (credit-based), Krithika Subramanium, who had won the Kalpana Agarwal Memorial Prize.

The sponsor of the gold medal, OP Agarwal, was furious as he had given the varsity a mould to prepare the medal, along with money to mint it from 30 grams of 24 carat gold.

The medal, which he had instituted after paying Rs10 lakh to the varsity in memory of his wife, was neither made of gold nor did it bear the embossed image of his wife’s face, despite his clear specifications.

“The medal has a lot of financial as well as sentimental value for me. As a tribute to my dead wife, I had thought of donating the money to the University and offering this medal. But now I realise that I had put my faith in the wrong institution. I feel cheated,” he said.

“It was an oversight on the part of the accounts section. We generally give gold-plated medals to the students but the concerned officials were not aware that this particular medal had to be in gold. So they minted a gold-plated medal for it. Now we will prepare a new gold medal and give it to the student,” said Vilas Shinde, controller of examination, Mumbai University.

But the topper’s mother, Padma Subramanium, is not impressed. “My daughter’s once in a lifetime moment was ruined by this mistake. She was the first member in our family to receive such an honour, but we could not celebrate her victory,” she said.