Tried & tested offline triumphs

MUMBAI: The time-tested offline admission system came to the rescue of the students, saving them from the vagaries of the online method introduced this year in the city. According to college principals, admissions would be on till Wednesday as several students were yet to sign up despite being shortlisted.
Kirti Narain, principal, Jai Hind college said, "There are some vacancies primarily due to withdrawals.We will accept new forms till Wednesday to fill up these seats.''
The deputy director of school education, which monitors the admission process each year, had still not received updated information from individual colleges on the number of students still waiting to take admission. V K Wankhede, deputy director said most colleges closed admissions late on Tuesday and had not uploaded the details regarding seats filled. K A Vishwanathan, trustee, SIES College, said, "We had 35 seats left in Science out of which 22 have been filled. We have put up a waiting list for the other seats and are expecting them to be filled up by Wednesday. There are no seats left in Commerce.''
Several colleges like KC, NM and HR have no vacant seats. Sathaye College principal Kavita Rege said, "We have approximately 40 seats left and a second list will be put up on Wednesday.''
Meanwhile, during a hearing in the Bombay HC on a PIL over online admissions on Monday, Shiv Sena worker from Thane Pratap Sarnaik alleged that the deputy director of education admitted 17,700 students were yet to get admission anywhere. He also said the deputy director blamed it on the faulty online process and said MKCL- the service provider-had collapsed.
The PIL was being heard by a division bench of chief justice Swatanter Kumar and justice Ajay Khanwilkar. The court has now asked the state to file an affidavit explaining how the remaining students would be accommodated in the colleges.
According to principals, the offline admission process saw three kinds of students queuing up for admission: those who had been allotted a seat but wanted to get into a college of their top preference, those who had not been assigned a seat anywhere and candidates who had abstained from participating in the online process. The offline process clearly, said principals, was what helped iron out the problems.