The Hindu : Front Page : Hiccups ‘choke’ web counselling

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Saturday, Aug 01, 2009
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Hiccups ‘choke’ web counselling

Slow connectivity, server problems turn a nightmare for students, parents

HYDERABAD: The much-awaited web counselling for engineering admissions that started on Friday was hampered by slow connectivity and server problems and left most parents and students dissatisfied.

The cumbersome procedure apart, the new concept led to confusion in choosing the institutions and courses. Students had to spend more than an hour to give their options after logging onto the website and there was a flood of complaints about the given options not getting saved forcing them to start afresh.

Pradeep Reddy, who secured 36,000 rank, could only give 274 options at Masab Tank helpline centre till evening and got totally drained. It was a tiring exercise for him despite working on the options as per his rank at home for the last few days. The slow connectivity made it worse for students like him.

Officials attributed it to server problems and hurriedly made arrangements for adding another server to take the load. “The NIC has promised to install an additional server by evening and things would be smooth from Saturday,” assured the APSCHE Chairman K.C. Reddy. He said officials were meeting on Saturday to review the process and also discuss extension of the counselling dates to ensure that all students got enough time to give options. About 2.7 lakh options were given by 4 p.m. on the first day.

That students favoured luck in seat allotment rather than being realistic could be gauged from the fact that even rankers above 25,000 were placing top-rated colleges in their first 100 options. “I am trying my luck” was the response of a student who got 26,000 rank. “This shows they are not doing their homework properly,” said an official. Though there was no harm in giving priority to top colleges and courses, he advised students to give maximum options.

Financial losses

Prof. K.C. Reddy said double payment seats are not being offered this year due to reluctance from colleges. Colleges had been complaining that free seats created were being taken, but double payment seats offered in lieu of them were not being filled causing financial losses to them.

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