Where are hall tickets, ask 1 lakh TYBCom students in Mumbai

A third-year Commerce (TYBCom) student from Jai Hind College, Akanksha Shah (name changed) is worried about her final exams, scheduled to start on Wednesday. Her anxieties concern not her accounts and finance paper to be conducted on Day One, but the hall ticket.

“We are enquiring with the college every day, but there is no news,” said Akanksha.

Close to a lakh students across hundreds of affiliated colleges have not received their hall tickets from the University of Mumbai.
Until last year, hall tickets were sent to colleges a week before the exams, but this time, according to sources, the work is yet to be finished.

“We have received neither soft nor hard copies,” said Dr Debajit Sarkar, principal of JM Patel College.

Sangeeta Kohli, principal of SK Somaiya College, said: “Even if we receive the soft copies by Monday, it will take a day to take the print out and another day to sign hundreds of tickets.”

When online examination forms for third-year courses were announced in November 2011, every stakeholder was sceptical about the move. The system required the college staff to fill up the forms, and scan and email them to the varsity, and hard copies to be sent as well. This doubled the work of the colleges and the varsity’s exam cell.

“But the varsity went ahead without weighing strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, controller of examinations SM Suryawanshi took charge barely two months ago after Vilas Shinde was dismissed on the charge of fake certificates,” said a professor.

Suryawanshi didn’t respond to our calls, but the dean, faculty of commerce and principal of Nirmala Memorial Foundation College, Madhu Nair, claimed:

“The hall tickets and centre lists are ready. A few colleges were given tickets on Saturday, and the rest will get them on Monday — printed and soft copies, both.”

The hall tickets were finally uploaded on the university website on Sunday evening, and students will now be able to take printouts.