Confusion over subjects, guidelines, outstation applicants flock to grievance cell

New Delhi: As the admission procedures resumed on Tuesday, after the long weekend, the Delhi University also saw students flocking to its conference centre to get their queries cleared.

While many left reassured, others were left in tears, as they saw their dream of a seat at a prestigious DU college crumbling right before their eyes. Issues ranged from confusion over subjects, best four guidelines, and glitches in the payment system.

Prashant G of Tamil Nadu had only just convinced his DU college of choice to accept his provisional certificate as the Tamil Nadu state board has yet to issue their Class 12 marks sheets, that he realised that his payment of the admission fees was not going through.

“I need to submit the receipt of the admission fees to apply for the hostel. My father even offered to get his card swiped at the campus, but we were told that all payments need to be made online. However, they say their server is down currently, and they are unable to process payments,” he said.

A DU official said that though there were glitches around noon, they had been resolved by late afternoon. Approximately 6,200 students have completed their payments and confirmed their admissions by Tuesday night.

Siddharth Sunil Panicker, a student from Kerala who completed his grade 12 under the state syllabus, had a different issue.

“Mathematics is titled ‘Mathematics-Com’ in my marks list. This is something they started this year, and is used to specify that I was a commerce stream student, even though the maths we do is the same as science stream students. I was told that they do not recognise this as Mathematics, and I would not be eligible for the BA (Hons) in Economics programme,” said Panicker, who has submitted a copy of his syllabus and his prescribed textbooks to the DU grievance cell, which allegedly states that though the book is published by the SCERT in Kerala, the syllabus is as prescribed by NCERT.

Another student from the Karnataka state board, who wished to remain unnamed, had a similar battle with Mathematics. Mathematics, here is called ‘basic maths’ and was deemed unacceptable. Though the university later recognised it as a Mathematics subject, she was told she will have to take a percentage cut in her best four score.

“This is just about nomenclature. This was not the case in previous years, this is a new issue this year,” said Asmil Abdul Majeed, a second year SRCC student who was with the applicants.

Sidra Ali, an OBC applicant from Kerala also saw her OBC certificate rejected. “In my OBC certificate the Tahsildar has filled ‘Islam Mapila’ both the religion and the caste. I have been told that it had to be just the caste when I went to get my documents verified at colleges.”

The DU grievance cell had taken note of these issues, and met on Tuesday evening to resolve them. “Most issues have been resolved, and we have forwarded certain queries (especially those pertaining to subjects) to the concerned authorities,” said a DU official.