Death of another students causes concern

EVEN AS the controversy generated over the death of a student in the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) a few months back is still afresh in the minds, the death of yet another student, this time in the Central University, has raised several questions about the medical facilities on the campus.

The latest victim, G. Narayan Reddy, a Ph. D student in the Linguistics Department, died on the way to hospital in the city after the medical centre in the University was found to be ill equipped to handle a complex case like his. However, the students also blame the duty doctor for what they call laxity on his part.

Had the doctor accompanied him to the hospital, situated far away from the campus, it might have helped to some extent and perhaps his life could have been saved, feel the students. Angered over the death of one of the most known faces of the campus, the students directed their ire against the responsible demanding action against them.

The students are unable to digest his death given his background and his pleasing demeanour. Coming from a poor family and bagging scholarships to study in the A.P. Residential School, Sarvail, Nalgonda and later in the university, he was the most known face of the campus.

Students allege that all they get is a paracetamol and some basic medicines and the medical centre grossly lacks infrastructure to take care of even a slightly complex case. Though, there are three doctors in the centre, they are hardly of any use, if they can't save the lives, remarks, a close friend of Reddy.

However, the authorities contend that it was not the callousness on part of the doctor, but the complexity of the case that led to the death of Narayan Reddy. But a staff member, seeking anonymity agrees that there was a need for adding more facilities to the centre, given the distance from the city and lack of decent hospitals near the campus.

But his death has further strengthened the demand for better doctors and medical facilities on the campus, particularly those situated away from the city. The demand was raised last year too when the ANGRAU student died in similar circumstances.

BIE's new methodfor coding answer sheets

In order to dispel the apprehensions of errors in coding and decoding of answer sheets, the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) has introduced a new method on a pilot basis in the supplementary examinations this year.

Through the OMR and bar coding method, that was tested in the Commerce paper-II, the BIE promises an error free coding of answer sheets from this academic year. Dr. Sreenivasa Rao, Secretary, BIE says that there have been apprehensions among the students and the parents as well about the BIE committing mistakes during the manual coding of papers.

Infact, the poor performance of students was sometimes attributed to some "blunders" in the coding and decoding of the answer scripts. However, coding was necessary to keep the secrecy of valuation.

All that students had to do in the new method was to fill the OMR sheet attached to the answer sheets with a pencil. The remaining details were completed by the officials and the detached sheet was fed into a computer thus storing the details of the student.

The present process of coding and decoding of answer scripts is laborious and time consuming besides being costly. The new method would be cost effective and highly reliable. "We wanted to try out this foolproof method before introducing it totally from the next examinations", pointed out Mr. Srinivas Rao. A.P. is said to be the first state in the country to have adopted such method at Intermediate level.

R. RAVIKATH REDDY

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