Hundreds of MCA and MBA students studying in JNTU-Hyderabad-affiliated colleges might not be allowed to sit for their semester exams due to lack of sufficient attendance. While the varsity had relaxed attendance norms for B.Tech students citing closure of colleges for over a month due to the Telangana agitations last year, the same was not extended to MCA and MBA courses offered by the same engineering colleges.

As a result about 1,500 students who had registered for first and third semester exams scheduled to begin from February 6 face the risk of detention as they failed to meet the required attendance of 75 per cent. Complaining of “discrimination” by the university, the students said it was not fair as B.Tech students had been allowed to appear for semester exams recently even if they had only 40 per cent attendance.

As per varsity norms, students must have 75 per cent attendance to be eligible to sit for exams. A 10 per cent leeway is allowed on medical grounds, but studentswith less than 65 per cent attendance are barred from taking the exams. The students argued that they had not been able to attend classes for 25 days

during September and October last year due to the 25-day RTC strike due to Sakala Janula Samme. “Both B.Tech and MCA courses are offered by the engineering colleges. If B.Tech students could not attend classes due to the Tstrike, the same is applicable for MCA and MBA students also,” said P. Ashwin Kumar, an MCA student. “Why is this discrimination when students of both the B.Tech, MCA and MBA courses attend classes in the same engineering colleges?” asked M.D.Nooruddin Farooq, an MCA student.Solution underway JNTU officials said they would consider relaxing the attendance norm for MCA and MBA students too. “We will take a final decision in a couple of days,“ said Dr A. Govardhan, exams branch, JNTU-Hyderabad.