New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) Admission seekers at the University of Delhi (DU) faced severe inconvenience on the second day of admissions on Friday due to slow functioning of the varsity's website and no alternate mode for fee payment.
A female student, wishing not to be named, who got herself registered at the Daulat Ram College in north campus of the DU, lamented she has been trying to pay the fee online at a nearby cyber café but in vain.
"I got my documents verified in the morning. Later I went to the cyber café to pay the fee but the DU website was running slow. I came back to the college to check if I can pay the fee here but was told that there was no alternate payment mode."
She said the college staff told her to pay the fee and submit the receipt to them by 12 noon on Friday. "I am worried now", she said, adding she had come all the way from Rohtak in Haryana.
The university administration, however, claimed that the website was running fine.
"The website is running fine but it is little slow. There is no problem from the university's end but the payment gateway is creating some problems," Deputy Dean of Students Welfare Gurpreet Singh Tuteja told IANS.
The absence of academic staff during the admission process also led to confusion among the admission seekers as well as the college administration.
While the administration at the Daulat Ram College told the students that they had to pay the fees by 12 noon on Friday, university sources said the students have time till Monday to pay the fees.
"Those who are handling college admissions are non-academic and mostly clerical staff. They are not clear about the rules. However, everything is available online; the students can check there," the source said.
The Delhi University Teachers' Association has called for a boycott of the admission process to protest some notifications of the University Grants Commission.
Meanwhile, the college authorities admitted that the admission process was progressing "slowly" compared with last year.
"Last year on the second day we had completed around 500 admissions. However, this year we have verified just 200 students, some of them are yet to pay their fees. It may be because of the confusion that is happening due to the online procedure", said a highly placed staff member at Sri Ram College of Commerce.
This is for the first time that the university has introduced full-fledged online admission procedure for admissions where the aspirants have to select the course and college online.
Under the newly introduced format, the applicants have to log on to the college portal to generate an admission slip and approach their respective colleges with the slip and other documents.
The admission will only be confirmed after the students submit the fee payment receipt at their college.
