Medical admissions deferred after website glitch
Directorate of Medical Education says counselling will resume after SC directive; students and families allege irregularities, block road after waiting for results on Friday night
The second round of counselling for admissions to state-run and private medical colleges was deferred on Friday late night after a glitch in the government website that triggered allegations of irregularities.
The counselling will resume after the Supreme Court gives a directive on Monday, the directorate of medical education (DME) said.
“The counselling was stopped late night after the MP Online server was hacked. The reason behind the hacking and the identity of the hacker will be revealed after an investigation,” said DME director GS Patel.
Irate students and their family members, who came to the Gandhi Medical College (GMC) for the counselling, blocked a road at Royal Market on Saturday, alleging irregularities in the allotment of seats. Now, 730 seats are vacant at private medical colleges and 87 at government ones.
The Supreme Court ordered a centralised admission process in the state on September 22 after cancelling counselling sessions conducted by private medical and dental colleges. Friday was the last day of the counselling.
HT spoke to students and their parents who spent the whole night at GMC vainly waiting for the results.
“I am coming here with my daughter for the last four days with the hope of getting a seat in a government medical college. The authorities could not display the results till 1 am, citing a problem in the computer server,” said Neeraj Jain from Gwalior.
Himanshu, a student from Raisen district, claimed the server error was a well-planned conspiracy. “The Supreme Court ordered the authorities to complete counselling by September 30 midnight. That the results were not displayed was a violation of the SC order,” he said.
“We could not leave the premises (of GMC) to take food as we were afraid that we might miss our call for the counseling,” said Umesh Barnwal from Gwalior, who came with his friend and her daughter for the counseling. “We only had snacks from the eateries located near the GMC. Food stall owners fleeced the students and parents. They were charging almost double the MRP printed on food items.”
Barnwal added, “No water in the toilets of the college put people in difficulties.”
Some parents with their children entered the GMC dean’s office around 1.30am to vent their frustration over the counselling delay. They left the office after officials assured them that the results would be displayed by 3am.
GMC dean Ulka Srivastava said there was a problem in the servers of MP Online and the results would be downloaded after it was set right.
“We sent an official to the MP Online office to obtain the hard copy of the results list as the technical problem in the servers was beyond our control,” Srivastava told HT.