State CET cell blunder: SSC and HSC columns interchanged

Nagpur: Software blunders in the online admission portal being handled by the state CET cell for professional undergraduate courses led to major chaos among parents and last minute salvage operation by the authorities. One of the biggest bloopers was the interchanging of SSC and HSC marks column in the portal which meant science stream students could not enter correct information. The problems were rectified later in the evening.
A parent, who did not wish to be identified, said, “In the HSC marks column, they asked us to enter marks for both maths and biology. Since both fields were mandatory, we were not able to proceed further. It is obvious that students who appear for maths in HSC will not be going for biology.”
Another problem was faced while entering SSC marks because of a clause mentioned there. “On the screen, it was written that if you have not appeared for maths, science or english, then enter zero. But that is not possible since maths and science are compulsory subjects at SSC level. The only explanation is that the software is erroneously showing SSC fields on HSC page and vice versa,” the parent said.
Students also had problems entering their NEET marks. One of the students said, “Entering the NEET scores basically allows me to be eligible for the 15% all India quota. But the portal was asking for marks scored in individual subjects, even though NEET authorities have only given us percentile. So, we are stuck and not able to proceed further.”
A student who had been trying to apply for engineering colleges said that it had become difficult to get doubts clarified as well. “You try calling on their helplines and see how many times somebody actually picks up. It’s frustrating that they can’t do anything without creating a mess,” said the student.
The CET cell authorities were well aware of the issues that their software is facing and had gone into the crisis-solving mode. Anand Rayate, head of the state CET cell, told TOI that all these issues were being discussed in his ‘war room’. “We are working on the problems and the HSC/SSC page issue will be sorted very soon. Every other hitch that is being noticed will also be rectified so that students do not suffer,” said Rayate.
Many academicians said that the state CET cell is not able to handle the workload well. A senior academician said, “This is the first time that they are handling the entire process and probably were not ready to take up such a large scale assignment. The earlier authority, DTE, had been doing it for quite some time and had learnt from past errors and had a well-oiled machine in place. But not to be unfair to the CET cell, I believe these are just teething troubles.”