NU exams in peril as MKCL refuses to share students’ data

Nagpur: Even after being ousted, MKCL is refusing to mend its ways and is now allegedly threatening the Nagpur University administration of not handing over the students’ data for the forthcoming summer examinations.
As per NU officials, the agency was demanding NU finance and accounts section to clear its dues of Rs86 lakh and had sent a demand of Rs33 lakh towards its first instalment. Even vice chancellor Subhash Chaudhari was allegedly pressurizing the officials to clear its dues at the earliest.
The officials opposed MKCL’s demand clarifying that it had miserably failed to provide services as decided in the contract and was subsequently shown the doors for inordinately delaying the first semester results for over five months. They told TOI that MKCL had a data of about 75,000 students on its ERP software and it had warned that it would not share it with NU till their dues were settled.
NU again roped in MKCL on the VC’s behest even after state higher education minister Chandrakant Patil terminated its contract on August 28, after a series of TOI reports exposed how the Pune-firm was illegally awarded contract without floating the tenders and despite having extremely poor track record. Chaudhari told his officials that till both sides mutually agree, no agreement can be terminated, and therefore MKCL's services can still be continued.
Expressing surprise over the development, MLC Pravin Datke said they had no trust on Chaudhari and would demand strict action against MKCL and VC if he was pressurizing his officials to clear the dues.
“We will take a follow-up on the probe panel report against the VC regarding illegally roping of MKCL without floating the tenders. We have full faith in deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Patil. We will also approach chancellor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for acting against Chaudhari for a host of irregularities that had brought disrepute to the historic institution in its centenary year,” Datke, who had raised the issue in council during monsoon session, told TOI.
MKCL’s coordinators in the city Shashikant Deshpande, who had taken its franchisee refused to take up TOI’s calls. Even NU’s coordinator for MKCL, Satish Shende, did not respond to the calls. Queries provided to NU’s public relations officer for seeking answers from VC and pro-VC Sanjay Dudhe in this regard went unanswered.
TOI was first to expose Chaudhari’s plans to rope in MKCL sans tender on October 27, 2021, when it published the news titled ‘Under pressure NU to rope in MKCL again despite abysmal track record’. Following TOI reports, Datke and Wanjari raised the issues in council. Many of its reports based on official documents were also submitted to the Baviskar panel, which passed strictures against Chaudhari.