Technical glitches, slow functioning of DU portal marks Day 1

Delhi University on Friday night opened its doors for aspirants, as the race to clinch seats in its colleges began on Saturday morning.

However, in a repeat of the varsity's online registration process, the DU server crashed several times and technical glitches frustrated aspirants and parents alike.

There was chaos on Day One of the admission process. Several students thronged North Campus, who had cleared the sky high cut-offs and were expected to log into the portal, sign in with their registration details and get a printout of the admission slip. The admission slip was to be taken to the college of their choice for document verification.

With the portal either working at a slow pace or crashing at 9 am, when the admission procedure officially began, students reached colleges without a printout. However, they were sent back as the colleges could not complete the process without the admission slip.

Many admission seekers dashed to nearby cyber cafes for printout of admission slips. Unfortunately, the cafes were unable to cope with the rush as well, due to slow functioning speed of DU's admission portal.

Since the admission window closed at 1 pm in some colleges, many students were forced to return home, hoping to be successful in the upcoming days.

Moreover, students at Daulat Ram College seemed clueless. But eventually, the portals started functioning.

"The admission process was almost hampered as the DU portal was not functioning. An official at the college told us to wait," said Nikita Manchandani, an aspirant's mother.

After a prolonged wait at the campus, the portal started working and Manchandani's ward got the admission slip.

Meanwhile, in South Campus, several aspirants made beelines at the nearest cyber cafes in Satya Niketan market to get a print out of the individual college forms. Sri Venkateswara College saw the most number of applicants. As soon as they entered the college premises, they came out within minutes, running to the nearest cyber cafe.

"I was supposed to give a printed form after logging into the official site with my User ID and password. The college officials had helped, but the server was down. Volunteers then gave us directions to the nearest cyber cafe," said Revati Venkatraman, an applicant.

A few metres from the college premises, around 50 students had stuffed themselves inside Utramod Cyber Cafe. The owner, Hemant, and two of his assistants helped many aspirants with their documents. "We have had around 50 students since 11:30 am. The website server keeps crashing, and after half an hour, it was functional again," he said.