Failing in Chennai? Come to Bombay and pass away! How agents got 'arrear' students from Madras University to pass en masse

Come from England, come from Scotland, come from Ireland 
Come from Holland, come from Poland, come from any land 
If you're looking out for a pleasant holiday 
Come to Bombay, come to Bombay, Bombay meri hai  

Remember this old song by Uma Pocha? Agents selling arrear-free futures also said something similar to Madras University Distance Education students, who were struggling to clear their papers. Their exact words seem to have been,'Come to Mumbai, we'll ensure you pass those exams without writing a word in your answer sheets!'

According to a report in Deccan Chronicle, distance education students from Madras University were paying agents to help them clear their arrear, by getting someone else to write their papers. This has allegedly been happening for years at certain centres including Mumbai and Hyderabad. At a centre like Mumbai, the student would attend the exam, but submit a plain sheet to the invigilators at the end which would then be answered by someone else. Apparently the 'someone else's' handwriting was too nice and too varied to be true and that's when the varsity began to take this complaint seriously.

Suspicion started to grow after students who were based in Tamil Nadu were choosing centres like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysore and Mallapam in Kerala to write their exams. An anonymous letter claiming that students were paying agents to pass these exams also increased suspicion among the management. 

Madras University vice-chancellor, S Duraisamy told Edex that a committee had been constituted to conduct a thorough investigation into these centres, "We are not yet sure about the agents but there are definite signs that staff within the centres were involved, so action will be taken against them." Earlier this year, Madras University had shut down 30 study centres across the country after UGC made it mandatory for distance education centres to function only within the State in which the University is located. These centres are now only allowed to hold exams for the batches in their second and third year of study who were already registered before the UGC order was implemented. "We have complied with the UGC rules.So there are only a few centres where examinations are held, four of these centres are now under investigation," Duraisamy said, 

The University has decided to withhold the results of almost 500 candidates till a full investigation is conducted.

Suspicion started to grow after students who were based in Tamil Nadu were choosing centres like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysore and Mallapam in Kerala to write their exams. An anonymous letter claiming that students were paying agents to pass these exams also increased suspicion among the management. Evaluators also noticed that many of the answer sheets had similar handwriting as well. Also, students with 14-15 arrears seemed to have cleared the papers all in one go. The agents allegedly charged Rs 15,000 per paper.