On the very first day of admissions to Delhi University?s four-year undergraduate programme on Monday, the DU website crashed, leaving applicants with no other option but to join the already long queues at the admission centres to collect forms.
Although the university started its online registration process at midnight on Monday, the website crashed soon after. This is the third consecutive year students encountered problems while trying to register online.
However, sale of forms, which was tepid in the morning, picked up during the day, as colleges tried their best to cater to the influx of students.
One of the admission centres in North Campus, Daulat Ram Campus, had to stop selling forms for a few hours after the staff faced protests for distributing the forms at the college gate and not allowing applicants to enter the premises.
?Since students were writing exams inside the college campus, and most of the staff dedicated to taking care of the examination, we decided to sell forms at the gate. From tomorrow, we plan on setting up a shamiana, and having proper arrangements in place, so that students do not face any issues,? Daulat Ram principal Dr Daya Aggarwal said. Unlike other information centres, Daulat Ram also had a separate counter for students belonging to SC/ST category.
?I was hoping to fill the form online. But after the website crashed, I went to an admission centre, since it seemed like a safer option,? political science aspirant Mukul Sachdeva said.
By 5 pm on Monday, the 18 information centres had sold 32,460 forms offline and received 3,129 completed forms; 17,062 candidates registered on the university?s website online and 2,345 students submitted the forms.
Pageviews for the DU?s app also saw a steep rise. In a single day, the app received 1,568. So far it has received a total of 4,624 pageviews.
Meanwhile, students could be seen outside information centres and several other areas of the North Campus, staging protests against the four-year programme.
Students from School of Open Learning held protests, claiming that the DU policies ?devalue their degrees?. Members of the National Students? Union of India (NSUI) ? the students? wing of the Congress ? staged protests, demanding better management of the admission process.
