“Is
it a sin in this country to enforce a rule strictly?” If someone asks you this
question, what would be your reaction?
Whenever there is a rule and attempt to enforce the same, some people might feel that “rules are made for our better living” and some others might feel that “we are living under tremendous pressure due to various rules”. What do you think about following case?
The
same powerful question was recently asked by A S Srikanth, COMEDK Chief
Executive when some people felt COMEDK was too harsh in enforcing certain
rules.
About COMEDK: Consortium
of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka is is formed by the
Karnataka Private Medical & Dental Colleges Association, in their endeavour
to offer an effective, fair and objective testing procedure to determine merit
of students seeking admission to the member institutions. COMEDK has been
assigned the task of organising a common entrance test for the academic year
2012-2013.
Note: This
is excerpt from http://www.comedk.org/
In
a nutshell, the issue is that COMEDK didn’t entertain some aspiring students
during the Post Graduate Medical and Dental seat counseling process after
students failed to comply with some of the rules COMEDK had specified earlier.
Students felt COMEDK acted harshly and unreasonably, ignoring their high merit,
and thus ruining their chances of getting seats; on the other hand COMEDK defended
its stand of sticking to rules strictly without deviations.
I
have been following this interesting issue. Before I share my view on this, I think
it would be better if you go through the following links:
News
Coverage in Deccan Herald
Note: don’t miss the
readers’ comments too, they are only few in number):
18th May 2012: DD bungling costs Comed-K PG seat
aspirants dear
19th
May 2012: DD issue haunts dental seat aspirants too
22nd
May 2012: Comed-K: Students move HC
25th
May 2012: Comed-K hopefuls get a reprieve
30th
May 2012: Don’t fill seats till plea is decided, colleges told
31st
May 2012: HC annuls order on Comed-K recounselling
Notifications
published by COMEDK
Counseling
Process Document
Recap
of Procedure for PG Counseling 2012
Kind
Attention PG aspirants
Note: I am not sure
if above notifications were published by COMEDK in timely fashion, whether they
were sent to aspirants through emails, printed copies etc. However they were
clearly available in the website at least, no doubt about that. And also I have
read any news item that talked about students’ claims that rules were not
clearly published.
My
views
Alright,
I believe you have gone through above links and formed your own opinion. Here
are my views on this.
When
my father first drew my attention towards this, I felt that COMEDK was
unreasonable. Then after going through COMEDK’s website, my opinion was
changed. Though I feel sorry for the aspiring students who missed seats, I
personally feel that COMEDK is relatively more correct than the students. As
you can see in COMEDK’s notifications, rules were crystal clear – maybe people
who don’t care to even read such rules do not deserve a seat. If they had
questions regarding which is a nationalized bank or not, they could have and
should have contacted COMEDK.
Improvement area
for ComedK:
Why only DD was specified as payment method? What was the reason behind
specifying only nationalized banks? Why so much of importance on the bank’s counterfoil?
Giving KPSC’s example doesn’t explain COMEDK’s actions – maybe KPSC also acted without
much forethought, who knows? Explaining the real reason behind the rules is the
way to go. I hope Srikanth realizes this and patiently explains the same.
There
is one particular issue mentioned in the news report about Bank of Maharashtra:
in that particular instance, COMEDK seems to have messed up badly. I am not
sure exactly how that student is supposed to get justice without conducting
entire counseling process again. That probably is going to be a headache for
COMEDK unless the student has missed something else also.
A
middle path:
The rules were not totally unreasonable, but mistakes by students can also be pardonable
to some extent. I believe the strictness is mainly to avoid unnecessary delays
in the counseling process because of irresponsible students. Considering this,
I believe maybe there could have been a milder “punishment”: Give the
counseling opportunity for such student only after 10 or 20 more candidates
with lower ranking are done with their counseling. This way, a strong
message is also sent out to students to be more responsible, but at the same
time a meritorious student’s one time mistake doesn’t get a severe punishment also.
What say?
Note: A penalty in
terms of money is not the solution here, I think. Rich students will continue to
be irresponsible and get away by paying such penalties without any regret or
anxiety.
Conclusion
Anyway,
the issue hasn’t come to an end yet, maybe students will still go to Supreme
Court and continue to fight. Lets see what happens. Whatever has happened has
happened, I am hoping for an ultimate decision in favor of COMEDK this time (except
in one particular issue of Bank of Maharashtra explained above) and also hoping that COMEDK
would take a middle path next year.
Disclaimer: I am not
directly involved in this issue and my views or solely based on reports in
Deccan Herald mentioned above, and information that I found in COMEDK website
that I presented above. There may be much more to this whole thing that I may
be missing. Feel free to bring such things to my notice and I would be glad to
stand corrected.
5 comments:
A rule is a rule is a rule. Because of the all-pervading 'swalpa adjust makdkolli' mentality things do go haywire sometimes.
The way out of this senario could have been:
1. COMED K says we give you a temporary seat allotment letter which will be confirmed only after you come in with the proper DD and the counterfoil from an approved bank.
2. Ask one of the banks to setup a counter in the counseling center to issue DDs as required.
But we are all wise in hindsight.
When a rule is silly, it is silly. Trying to legitimize it by trying to pretend that you are "high minded" is a fools errand. A DD is a DD insisting that it be from a nationalized bank is idiotic. Will procuring such a DD make the medical profession better? No, you will only be disqualifying a fine candidate. There are lots of idiotic rules, enforcing them with an iron fist is regimentaion. If you are happy to live in such conditions, more power to you. For me, our energy is better spent in fighting to change these rules by challenging them than to put the officials on a pedestal and praise them for following the "letter of the law" instead of the intent of the law.
@Anonymous: DD is a DD, no doubt. If any of the involved parties had challenged such rule when it was published, I would have supported such a fight. Anyway, I might be little high minded, but at least I write openly and try to think towards a greater good. I don't write anonymous comments disrespectfully.
I think it is childishness to insist on this and that kind of payment method and mostly agree with the comments of Anonymous.
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