Panaji, July 31 (IANS): In early 2000s, the IIT-Bombay authorities had a difficult time finding the records of Manohar Parrikar who is billed as the first graduate of the reputed institution to serve as chief minister of an Indian state.

When he first became the chief minister of Goa in the early 2000s, the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay decided to award him a scroll of honour, recalled Defence Minister Parrikar, speaking here on Saturday at the inauguration of IIT-Goa.

"So the (IIT) Senate passed their resolution and then the search for all my details started. The dean was Suryanarayan or someone at that time. He was panicky when he called me at about 11:30 in the night asking me: What is your year of passing?" said Parrikar served twice as Goa's chief minister.

It was 1978, he told the dean.

That didn't help. The dean continued to sound frantic when he called Parrikar again to say that his name could not be traced in the records.

"Then after half an hour it struck me that my official name is Prabhu Parrikar. I had to phone him and tell him please check Prabhu Parrikar, you will get my name there," Parrikar told an audience of IIT-Bombay alumnai, teachers and students from the first batch of IIT-Goa.

"You don't have to worry about it, because I surely have a certificate with me. I stayed there for six and a half years. That all could not have been total imagination," Parrikar told the dean.

Academic records and allegedly fake degrees of politicians have become a big issue in recent months.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy alleged a few weeks ago that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal used unfair means to get into IIT-Kharagpur.

The dean of IIT-Kharagpur subsequently clarified that Kejriwal had indeed cleared his IIT-Joint Entrance Exam, but test records had been destroyed as part of an established routine.