Indore: Not one or two but three times Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya , which talks ad nauseam about going paperless, came up with numbers of different automation projects in last 11 year, but none of them saw light of the day. However, the university did not give up and has again geared up for yet another project. This one is even bigger, it claimed. “This time around we have planned to make all our services computerised — be it admission, exams, results or day to day working of the university,” said vice chancellor Dr Narendra Dhakad.
The previous projects were for automating some areas of the university. He said that automation is an ambitious project of the DAVV which it wants to be executed in about two years. “In phased wise manner, the automation project will be implemented. We will start the project from making out result processing system online. Later on exams and admission process will also be automated,” the VC said.
He stated that within two years, the university would be fully automated. The need for automation project has been felt in the university for past 15 years, especially after its jurisdiction expanded 2000 but the government did not allow it to appoint more non-teaching staff to cater to additional works.
In fact, the number of non-teaching employees shot down with many of them retiring over the years. “With working hands decreasing, we have no other option to embrace technology to deal with workload. Besides, we also need to integrate technology into education system to make it more transparent, user friendly and convenient,” said the VC. The executive council of the DAVV approved the university automation project on Wednesday and soon tenders will be floated.
Failed projects
Case I In September 2006, the DAVV had entrusted the contract of automation to Wipro company and jubilantly claimed that it would go paperless in six months. The project cost was Rs 50 lakh and the project should be completed by March 2017. But the project delayed over one or other reason and it could not be completed even after passing of three years. In 2009, the then vice chancellor Dr Ajit Singh Sherawat asked the company to complete the project by March 2010 else it would be blacklisted by DAVV. The university was blacklisted in 2011 which lead to a legal battle. The company returned Rs 25 lakh given by the university after which it was removed from the blacklist. The project could not be completed and was trashed.
Case II In 2014, the university announced plans to make exam and results processing system online. It had plans to send answer books online to examiners for scrutiny. It also had thought about sending question papers to examination centres online. For making this happen, the university invited software companies offering identical services in other universities in the country and finalised the modalities. But the proposal was dumbed as some executive council members of that time did not find the idea feasible.
Case III In 2015, the DAVV came up with a plan to introduce web-based management system which it thought would provide solution to its problems related to staff crunch and make it a paperless institution, a long-pending dream of this university. But the state government told the university not to go ahead with the project as it was planning an identical system for all state universities in the state. The government went through the DAVV proposed system and decided to launch the same in all varsities across the state but soon that idea was trashed, reasons best known to powers that be. Because of the government, the DAVV could also not launch the project.
