Fake Indian degrees flood Middle East market

DUBAI - India churns out brilliant graduates by the thousands every year. But, unfortunately, it also churns out fake degrees by the thousands.

Manufacturing' fake certificates is a money-minting industry that has never stopped churning business for the people involved in it. The effect of such fakes is being felt globally, including the UAE and other AGCC countries, who, now insist on all certificate - degrees or otherwise - being attested and certified by the appropriate authorities.

While some fakes manage to slip through the scrutiny net, a few don't. A Khaleej Times investigation landed us with some of the fakes that had been caught -though attested!

Paul Kane, Director, Business Development for Quest Research Limited, one of Asia's leading corporate screening companies which conducts pre- employment background checks for leading Fortune 500 companies said that the Middle East market was increasingly being inundated by fake certificates by individuals desperate to land a job here.

'Out of the total number of cases we get for background screenings in the Middle East, nearly 25 per cent of the people end up holding fake academic degrees or certificates. India is a massive market and we conduct nearly 5,000 background checks for companies who hire people from there. On an average, about 10 cases of people holding fake degrees, who are interested to come to the Middle East, are discovered by our staff. It is a huge problem and companies also suffer due to this predicament,' he said.

Many agents also say that it is quite difficult to spot a fake degree nowadays, as it resembles an original one in every way- from the texture of the paper to the university stamp. But there also some cases in which the degree holders don't even bother in making a real effort to conceal their fraud.

Said Mr. Kane, 'We have had certain cases of people making up university names which do not even exist. Names such as Commercial University Ltd. of New Delhi, are regularly used by fake degree holders to gain employment. Employers should be more wary of hiring such people and should definitely conduct a background check on them.'

Several attestation companies which deal with attesting certificates on behalf of residents in Dubai, when contacted by this paper, conceded that they receive a number of enquiries from individuals with fake degrees over here.

'On an average, we get almost 10 enquiries a month from people with fake degrees who want to know whether it is possible to get their certificates attested without detection from both the Indian and UAE authorities. In such cases, we refuse to entertain such requests and try to dissuade them from going through with these illegal activities, as it would directly harm our reputation as well. But, there are certain agents who do go ahead with authenticating such degrees as the money involved is quite a bit,' said Raman, a manager at a Dubai based attestation company.

Direct fallout of fake degrees flooding the market and drowning the attestation authorities is the pressure it has brought to bear on them in India. They have to, literally, deal with mountains of certificates every day, coming in from all corners of the country, with almost little or no time to cross-check on their validity or otherwise.

Each attestation authority depends on the other to spot a fake. And it is this dependence that allows the industry to mushroom with no threat of detection. This, however, say some, is not an excuse for the Indian authorities to turn a blind eye to such cases.