Bengaluru: The ruling Congress was left red-faced here on Wednesday, after Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy was criticised by his own party’s student wing — the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) — which accused his office of being party to a multi-crore marks card scam. The NSUI yesterday, however, modified its statement and said that the Minister was not a party to the scam. NSUI State President H.S. Manjunath Gowda submitted a memorandum to K.C. Venugopal, AICC General Secretary in-Charge of Karnataka, and demanded that the Minister be instructed to withdraw the order placed for purchase of marks cards for various Universities. He said that Rayareddy’s office had shown “undue favour” to a private vendor based in Mumbai by asking the Government-owned Mysore Sales International Ltd. (MSIL) to source marks cards from this firm by violating the tender rules under the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act. The Mumbai-based vendor is a broker of MSIL and is involved in selling fake marks cards/certificates of our Universities in other States, he alleged. Though the actual market rate of such quality marks cards and certificates is in the range of Rs.8 and Rs.12, MSIL is charging Rs. 36.5 plus taxes. The actual printing cost is Rs. 4 per marks card, whereas MSIL is charging over Rs. 35. Both put together, MSIL is charging over Rs. 90 per marks card, the memorandum said.
NSUI backtracks
