long lines at college gates
If the Delhi University administration had thought of a smooth admission process all across the North Campus, they were proved wrong on the very first day. Chaos and confusion ruled the Daulat Ram College (DRC) on the first day of admissions due to mismanagement on part of the authority. Unlike other colleges where the admission process ran smoothly, the DRC decided to sell and receive OMR forms from the college gate forcing the students to form queues outside the college. As students turned up in large numbers at the college, the queue extended to almost a kilometre and thus, slowed the process by hours.
Daulat Ram College had only one counter open for selling and one for receiving forms that too at the gate. Thus, the crowd outside the college increased so much that it continued right up to the Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC). Many students had to stand in the queue for over two hours. “We came here at 9.30 am to avoid rush. But it was all in vain because the rush was so much that we got the form only after two hours,” said Sakshi Ahluwalia, a student who had come from Chandigarh to fill her form.
There were no shelters or refreshment counters at the venue as well. The proposed team of university members for vigilance was also nowhere to be seen. The acting principal of Daulat Ram College, Dr Daya Aggarwal said, “We had not expected such crowd. From Tuesday, the glitches will be taken care of and the process will move smoothly.”
Student bodies of the college even carried out protests on this pretext. later leaders of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) along with DU Students Union Secretary Karishma Thakur climbed the gate of the College and demanded opening of the gates so that students could sit inside. However, that added to the confusion. Once the college opened the gates, they could not manage the crowd that swarmed in and started asking students to go to other centres.
The other centres in the campus like Hansraj College, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, IP College for Women and Swami Shraddhanand College had good management. However, once Daulat Ram College sent off the crowd from their college, the SGTB Khalsa College also got over crowded and the centre had to be closed. At the end of this process several students who had waited for hours didn’t even get a chance to buy the form as the time ran out.