VTU question papers cost Rs 6.84 crore

The Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belgaum has paid Rs 6.84 crore to the agency to send or e-mail the question paper online to the colleges.

According to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, "The payment was to be made only for the specimen question papers transferred online at the rate of Rs 19.16 per question paper and not for the number of question papers issued to students."

To avoid the stealing of question papers, VTU had introduced a system to send the engineering semester examinations online from 2011, to all the affiliated engineering colleges before 1 or half n hour before the commencement of examination. The college will print the paper and distribute to the students.

But, the report says that college will take the print out of the same question paper which costs 0.35 paise per page. An extra amount of Rs 1.55 crore has been paid by the VTU to the agency for the period from 2009 to 2012.

As per the contract, Agency has to maintain a server to send the question paper and has to inform the affiliated colleges to log on to their servers to download the question paper. The amount paid by the VTU to the agency which does not include the cost of printing at the colleges or the number of printouts taken at the colleges.

The CAG has pointed out that the exam system was conventional and colleges could have easily photocopied the specimen question paper. The CAG has also objected to the TA/DA paid to examiners and evaluators even after the evaluation was digitised.