Chaos reigned on Thursday after the education department declared the second general merit list invalid, citing a technical glitch. The problem was, however, rectified by 10.30 pm after the correct lists were put out on the website.
Earlier in the day, there was confusion everywhere as students did not receive any SMS (short message service) updates from Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), the state's technical partner in the admissions process, informing them of the mistake, and thought it was the correct list.
At around 6.30 pm on Thursday, some college principals received SMSes from MKCL asking them to ignore the lists they had accessed so far.
Some colleges had even put up their lists in their colleges until they received messages.
"As soon as I got the message I had to tell my staff to take down the lists," said Manju Nichani, principal of KC College at Churchgate.
Students were totally clueless. "How is that possible? We were not informed," said Sagar Shah, a student who was allotted his first preference in the second list only to realise it was invalid. Finally, at about 6.30 pm, a clarification was put up on the website. It read: "There are certain discrepancies in the general round two allocation list published today at 12.30 pm. Please treat that as cancelled. The corrected list shall be published before August 20, by 8 am and SMSes will be sent to the candidates."
At first officials from the education department denied the lists had been cancelled, despite messages from MKCL, saying it was a server error that had been sorted out by 2 in the afternoon. They later confirmed the error. "There was some technical problem, I do not know the details; the list should be out by Friday morning," said an education department official.
{{/usCountry}}At first officials from the education department denied the lists had been cancelled, despite messages from MKCL, saying it was a server error that had been sorted out by 2 in the afternoon. They later confirmed the error. "There was some technical problem, I do not know the details; the list should be out by Friday morning," said an education department official.
{{/usCountry}}The lists were expected at 5 pm, but students and colleges were able to access them as early as 12.30 in the afternoon.
A similar error occurred when the second vocational merit list was declared on August 5. The department first uploaded incorrect data, then three hours later put up the correct data.
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