Under the project, univ had collected Rs 3.41 crore from the students.
“After six years of signing of the memorandum of understanding and the payment of Rs3.41 crore to MKCL, the students of the university / affiliated colleges / institutes are still deprived of the benefits of e-suvidha and the objective of the project, ie to save time and costs for students remains unfulfilled.” This is the damning conclusion of a statutory audit report on the Mumbai University’s IT-project that was outsourced to the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL).
The audit, which was conducted by the state in March this year, is a detailed report card of the tie-up between the university and MKCL.
According to the report card, a copy of which is available with dna, MKCL also failed to set up a call centre on the university campus to render assistance to students, as was listed in the contract. It did not provide e-services for reassessment, retotalling, convocation and migration as promised, even after six years.
Most importantly, “the MoU doesn’t specify any time frame for implementation of the project which was divided into initial and handover phases,” the audit report said. All this puts a big question mark on the tie-up that was forged on November 18, 2006.
The audit report also pointed out that “admit cards for the exams are being prepared by the university and handed over to students manually till date (March 8, 2013).” dna reported this early this year.
The IT project was supposed to provide e-services to 6.5 lakh students in 680 colleges across six districts and between 2006 and 2012 the university collected Rs50 from each student, as e-suvidha charges, and handed over Rs3.41 crore to MKCL.
Pulling up the university for shelling out money to the firm without ensuring the deliverables, the report said, “It may also be stated, whether the university has confirmed that the services were provided as per MoU and shortfall brought to the notice of MKCL before release of payment.”
According to the MoU (a copy of which is also available with dna), the firm was to provide online solutions for students profiles, personalised timetables, alerts, notices, messaging services for students and teachers, applications for reassessment, retotalling, convocation, computer-generated eligibility and admission forms, exam forms, admit card printouts and exam result processing.
Incidentally, the only online application floated by the university for students till now is the examination form and this too has failed miserably over the past couple of years.
But university officials have remained in denial throughout. “They have trashed all complaints made by colleges and its own officers against MKCL,” said senator Sanjay Vairal.
“I joined three months back and the audit report hasn’t been brought to my notice. I want to take the project forward,” said Mohan Kumar, coordinator of the University Computerisation Centre which works with MKCL.
Vivek Sawant, MKCL MD, denied that the firm was supposed to provide a call centre for the students.
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