In what may come as a boon to candidates qualifying for UGC's National Eligibility Test (NET), e-certificate would be issued to them within six days of declaration of result.

"The introduction of e-governance into the system would cut down the time lag for issuing the certificate which now takes anywhere between six to eight months," HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said today while rolling out the new initiative.

Similarly, whenever an institution writes to UGC for verification of authenticity of NET certificate presented by the candidates at the time of applying for jobs, "the authentication will be done within a span of 24 hours as against the earlier time period of four months," the minister said.

Around five lakh candidates sit for NET tests, which are conducted twice a year, to become eligible for recruitment as assistant professors in colleges or universities and for award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF).

In June lat year, 10,433 candidates had successfully qualified the NET for assistant professorship and JRF.

Sibal said the e-governance initiative will from now on help candidates register online so that all necessary information with regard to the candidates are recorded at the time of registration itself.

The minister, on the occasion, also released a compendium of UGC schemes.

He later expressed happiness over the smooth conduct of the ongoing CBSE examination and no reports of any stress- related suicides.

"We had put in place policies to reduce the stress level on students by carrying out reforms in the examination patters. It is happy to note that no cases of suicides have been reported which shows that our policies have been well accepted by the students and parents," he said.
Law