Virus attacks, power outages did CAT in

Technical problems led to disruptions that have marred the first edition of computerised Common Admission Test (CAT), which continued to be affected for the fourth day on Tuesday.

Technical problems led to disruptions that have marred the first edition of computerised Common Admission Test (CAT), which continued to be affected for the fourth day on Tuesday.

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A report submitted by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad on Tuesday identified virus attacks, power outages and problems in hardware as the reasons for CAT trouble, an official in the human resource development (HRD) ministry said on condition of anonymity.

The IIM-A gave the report a day after the ministry ordered an inquiry into the server crash that left thousands of students unable to write the test.

Satish Deodhar of the institute is the convenor for this year’s test.

Complaints kept flowing on Tuesday as well. Students at labs in Lucknow, Bangalore and Bhopal failed to take the test being conducted by American firm Prometric in a staggered manner over 10 days.

Steps should have been taken to ensure that there were no technical glitches, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said.
“We want that such glitches do not occur again,” he told reporters outside Parliament.

A total of 8,297 examinees of 45,367 students could not appear in the test that started on Saturday, he said.