Hyderabad: Technology is all very well but it must work. Degree Online Services Telangana (DOST) which has started admissions of students in 123 colleges in the state, has not been able to work efficiently because of failed servers, time consuming biometric identification and long queues at e-seva and mee-seva centres.
DOST-2017 released its notification on May 15 but only 26,000 applicants have been able to register themselves, which is just 10 per cent of the total number.
The Telangana Degree Colleges Association alleges that by the deadline of June 5 it will be difficult to register more than 2 lakh applicants for the undergraduate courses in the state.
The process was supposed to lighten the physical and financial burden and mental stress of students but students and their parents are just not familiar with the process.
The infrastructure is not adequate either. Mr Shiva Kiran, 19, from Balajinagar, that only a few main Mee Seva centres have biometric devices. Since there is no separate counter, students have to wait for long periods while other people pay their electricity bills, do gurukul admissions etc.
“I had to go to four centres to get my token as every time I was told that the server was down. Today I was told to come tomorrow at 9. 30 am, but I got my token after they saw a Deccan Chronicle photographer taking a picture of the counter and not giving us the token,” he said.
Mr Shaga Srinivas, father of Mr Shiva Kiran, said he used to scold his son for not taking the token immediately “but today when I visited the centre myself I saw that they made them wait saying that the server was down.”
Mr Vinay Kumar said that neither he nor many rural students know the procedure, and then they have to contend with long queues and failed servers and power cuts. “We have to visit the centre twice or thrice to get our tokens.”
DOST convener Prof. K. Venkata Chalam said that an adequate number of biometric machines — 25 — had been installed and there is “sufficient advertising and publicity about the process. The website also has all the details for candidates.”
Mr Ramana Reddy, president of the Telangana Degree Colleges Associa-tion, said, “The registration of applicants is difficult due to the biometric devices and heavy rush to update information on all the other welfare schemes of the government..”
