PG admission at BU turns into debacle on Day One

Candidates, parents have fisticuffs with officials for 'sloppy' process

The admission to postgraduate courses at Bangalore University (BU) turned into a debacle on Monday as students and parents almost had fisticuffs with the authorities, blaming them for sloppy arrangement.

The counselling for the 2013-14 academic year turned chaotic within hours of its start. Students questioned the process’ transparency as BU departments did not display updates on seats filled and vacant. The university simply did not have a plan to deal with the huge number of applicants. So much was the chaos that it caused a stampede in the administrative block.

In the pandemonium, Bhavya, an aspirant for MSc (Biotechnology) course, got bruised. “There was no queue. Scores of parents and students just scrambled to get challans for admission. Everyone jostled with other for space. By the time I got out of the place, my hand was bruised,” she recounted.

Furious students slammed the university’s “indifference” and lack of transparency in the process. Students were particularly agitated at the absence of updates on the status of seats. They would learn about it only when their names were called and they went inside for admission.

“There is no one to check even if some seats go missing. We don’t know which college the previous rank-holder was assigned. We would also not know how many seats remain and whether some go missing,” said Anil Kumar, who had come from Hoskote.

Parents furious at the “haphazard” process accused the university of treating students’ career casually. Some said the entire process raised doubt and suspicion.

“We suspect something fishy. Those in-charge of counselling were trying to dissuade students from taking seats in certain reputed colleges, saying they were not good enough. It was apparent they were trying to put the seats under management quota,” said Ganesh Aital whose daughter Bhavana aimed to study biotechnology. “This is supposed to be a place of knowledge with educated people. But the way things are arranged does not give this impression.”

In the lurch

Students from the City were in a better situation. Outstation candidates who could not afford to stay overnight, however, were affected when the university said it would not be able to conduct admission for all those scheduled for Monday.

Avani was one such student whose parents had flown from Jharkhand. The department she wanted to enrol in did not finish the process as per schedule, leaving her family scrambling to find accommodation.

“They did not even inform us well in advance. We had to book flight tickets at the eleventh-hour, which cost us a fortune. After all the juggling, we are again asked to come back on Tuesday,” her father complained.

The process began at 10 am. By 6.30 pm, at least 200 parents were still lined up in front of the bank on campus to pay the fee. The university officials desperately but in vain tried to pacify the students who were by now in no mood to listen to assurances.

At certain places, even the security personnel gave up in exasperation as the situation went out of hand. The Vice-Chancellor, B Thimme Gowda, has promised to make the process on the second day. Although the university had planned to complete the process before August 29, the schedule may be extended due to the delay.