Telangana student suicide toll rises to 20

Hyderabad: Shocked and disappointed by the failure in Intermediate examinations, students in Telangana were continuing to end their lives.

With one more such incidents the toll in the wave of suicides over the last eight days has reached 20.

In the latest such incident 19-year-old girl Akrapu Mithi hanged herself at home in Naginenipally village under Bommalaramaram mandal of Yadadri Bhongir district.

The girl who had studied at a private college in nearby Bibinagar town was in depression since the results were announced on April 18.

Area police sub inspector Venkatesh said that the girl was shocked when she came to know that she had failed in two subjects Physics and Zoology.

The wave of suicides was unprecedented as never in the past so many students killed themselves in the aftermath of the announcement of Intermediate results. Sociologists and the parents say that mostly those students were committing suicides, who were confident of passing the examinations with the flying colours. This is also first time that suicides were continuing after so many days of the declaration of results.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who has ordered the officials of the Board of Intermediate to take up the re-verification and re counting of marks of all the 300,000 and odd failed students free of cost, expressed deep shock over the suicides and urged the students to remain calm.

State Board of Intermediate Education (SBIE) officials have clarified that the failed students need not apply for re-verification or recounting as it will be taken up automatically. The entire process will be completed in 12 days and memorandum of marks will be issued in 15 days in a foolproof manner, officials said.

A three-member high level committee, set up by the government to probe the reason for the bungling in the results, has concluded that the glitches in the software used in the process was responsible for the mess. They reached the conclusion after questioning the officials of a private sector company Globarena Technologies which was given the responsibility of handling the results.

According to the sources in the State Board of Intermediate Education the glitches in software were detected in October last and it was brought to the notice of the higher ups but nothing was done to rectify them leading to errors in the results.

Committee in its final report would recommend the replacement of the software before the process of re-verification or re counting of marks was taken up.

Meanwhile, pressure was mounting on the state government to dissolve the Board of Intermediate Education. But a leader of the Joint Action Committee of Board employees and president of Junior Lecturers Association Madhusudhan Reddy said that the Chief Minister should not take any hasty action in the matter. “The decision of assigning the responsibility to the Globarena company was itself wrong”, he said. He demanded action against the Secretary of the Board.