Power outage: University of Mumbai exams hit; several papers postponed

Exams of several colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai (MU) had to be rescheduled when a power grid failure on Monday morning led to widespread power outage

Exams of several colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai (MU) had to be rescheduled when a power grid failure on Monday morning led to widespread power outage across the city. Colleges under 10 clusters had to postpone exams while the other 32 clusters conducted examinations.

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Many parts of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane witnessed power cuts from 10am on Monday morning following the failure of a power grid. Some exams had to be called off despite having already begun while in other cases, exams scheduled to take place at 11am or later were postponed. Electricity supply was restored to most areas by the afternoon. In a statement issued late on Monday, MU said, “Postponed examinations will be planned by respective colleges. Backlog exams of colleges under 10 clusters of engineering department also had to be postponed.” Exams conducted by various MU departments will also be rescheduled.

“We had originally decided to reschedule exams to 4pm, but with no clarity on the status of electricity [supply], our cluster head informed all colleges to reschedule the exam to another day. We’ve already informed all our students,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrews College, Bandra.

Kishinchand Chellaram (KC) and HR Colleges at Churchgate postponed exams for the day and have rescheduled them for Sunday. “In some cases students could have faced network problems even after electricity was restored. We therefore decided to reschedule all exams of the day to Sunday,” said Hemlata Bagla, principal, KC College.

Several students took to social media to voice their concerns. “Without WiFi functioning, most of us had a tough time depending on regular mobile network for the exam. Our exam was scheduled to take place at 10am and the college informed us around 11:30am that the exam is being rescheduled,” said Anuj Sharma, a student of RD National College, in Bandra.

Several cluster heads left the decision of how and when to conduct exams to individual colleges, once power was restored on Monday afternoon. “We pushed some of the postgraduate exams to 6pm while exams for an undergraduate batch were conducted during the [same] day. Our coordinators got in touch with each and every student to ensure they had internet to be able to appear for the exam,” said Anju Kapoor, principal, UPG College, in Vile Parle.

Online classes by colleges across the city were also affected and most suspended online lectures for the day.

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State common entrance test (CET) exams for some candidates were also affected by the power grid failure on Monday. By the end of the day, the state CET cell released a circular on their website, clarifying that students who could not reach the exam centres due to non-functional local trains or other transport, should contact the cell.

“To safeguard the interest of students, if requests are received by students whose exam was scheduled in the second session (2:30pm to 5:30pm), who could not reach their test centres in time due to issues with transport, the state CET cell will decide a course of action in the best interests of students,” said the circular released by the CET cell.