Mumbai, June 30: The mandatory online system for junior college admissions is far from a purely online affair. Though applying to all colleges through a single from reduced the commuting stress on students, a good number of forms were filled through an offline software, and that too manually by technicians at the facilitation centres. This has become a cause of concern for students, who are worried if their forms have been filled properly, as it was not done in their presence.
After the system collapsed on the first day of admissions, the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), which is overseeing the process, sent copies of an offline software to all the submission centres. An extra step was then added to the process wherein, along with the summary printout of the online form, students were asked to also submit a filled-in photocopy of the dummy form in the information booklet handed out along with the marksheets. This form was earlier meant for manual practice only. These forms were then fed into the system through the software by data entry operators at MKCL. Till Monday evening, over 1,98,000 forms were filled.However, not more than 48,000 had been submitted.
However, Aatul Wadegaonkar, general manager of MKCL, said, “Since over 1,98 lakh forms have already been filled, there is no point now in questioning how it was done. We still have four more days to go and there are not many students left. There is no problem in form submissions now.”
Cause of worry
Despite having submitted the forms, students are nervous. Pratik Naik, a student from Matunga, said, “We were not present when the forms were being filled. We just submitted photocopies and they uploaded them. If the people filling the forms have erred in selecting the choices, our admissions will suffer.”
–Agencies