Help desk, Delhi University radio to field applicants’ queries

NEW DELHI: Though there will be no counsellors to help students at the post offices selling and receiving Delhi University application forms from Monday, DU officials plan to set up a help desk on North Campus. Student counsellors, especially trained for the job, will man the help desk at the Conference Centre from Monday. Representatives of all the eight colleges that will stock the forms met the dean of students’ welfare on Friday to work out the details of the process.They assured that the applicants will be provided help and guidance when they come for buying or submitting the forms in colleges.
“Candidates facing any problem can seek guidance at the help desk, which will be available every day during the admission process. Our trained student counsellors will be there to help them,” said J M Khurana, dean, students’ welfare. Conference Centre is also one of the 10 venues in DU where forms will be available from June 4 to 18. “We have also briefed the college authorities. They normally have teaching staff around to help students during submission of forms,” he added. According to DU officials, it was not feasible to set up help desks at the 12 post offices as the entire process will be handled by the existing staff there.
DU has seven student counsellors to support the newcomers. “We have adequately trained them and they will be able to guide the applicants on courses, colleges and the right way to fill up the forms. We have seen in the past that candidates have a lot of doubts and they can direct their questions to DU’s community radio also,” said a senior DU official. He added that volunteers from the community radio will be available in the field from Monday to take questions from the aspirants. “They will in turn direct the queries to experts on community radio. They have already been receiving a number of calls on admissions,” said the official.
DU’s new information centre is also receiving as many as 5,000 calls a day, which explains why callers can get through only after repeated attempts. Six executives and 10 interns from the department of adult education have been attending calls, which are increasing by the day.
“We have 10 phone lines which are available from 9am to 5pm. We have been getting calls from all over the country including Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Gangtok, and Kerala,” said Satish Kumar, in-charge, University Information Centre.
Information Centre: 155215, 011-27006900