Friday, April 30, 2010
Bangalore: Of the 143 Bangalore University exam toppers of 2009, only one will get a genuine gold medal at the 45th annual convocation on Friday. The rest will have to settle for rank certificates.

It appears that the university is unable to give gold medals as it does not have enough money to buy gold at the current prices. This, in fact, has been the situation for the past few years. Releasing the list of gold medallists here on Thursday, Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor N. Prabhu Dev said at least 8 gm of gold were needed for one medal. The gold medals are made from the interest accrued on the money deposited by various sponsors. Some of those who had instituted gold medals decades ago had deposited Rs. 5,000 which was enough then. In many cases the annual interest earned is as low as Rs. 150.

At the current gold price, the minimum deposit required to fetch an annual interest for purchasing 8 gm of gold is Rs 1.5 lakh, Dr. Dev said. He said the university had written to all those who had sponsored the gold medals requesting them to increase the deposit amount, but 90 per cent of them had not responded.

Asked why the university could not bear the cost, Dr. Prabhu Dev said the university needed to allocate around Rs. 34 lakh annually for it.

Dr. Prabhu Dev said that the university would give rank certificates to all the gold medal winners instead. “We are trying to give one gold medal to a student of Geology, who has become eligible for eight gold medals,” he said.
Dr. Prabhu Dev said all the 36,168 students who are eligible to receive degrees at the convocation can get their certificates online. The Vice-Chancellor said 24,774 students, who have already applied for degree certificates can download certificates online within a few days after the convocation and those who have not paid the fee can get the certificates after paying online. Meanwhile, the hard copy of the certificate would be sent to the students by courier.
Amrutha Venkatesh of MES College, who topped the B.Sc. exams in May 2009, will get nine gold medals; Tejakielie Meyase (M.Sc. -Geology)is to get eight gold medals; Priyanka J. B.Com., and Harish N.S, BE (Civil) will get seven medals each; Girish Bhat (MA-Sanskrit) and Aradhana Kabi, B.Ed.will get six medals each; and Priyanka S. Angadi, LLBwill be given four medals.