Around 30 minutes past nine, Anu was pacing up and down the corridor at P.G.D.A.V. College. “I have made a mistake and I am scared to use a whitener. There is no volunteer at the help desk,” she exclaimed. On contacting the authorities, they nonchalantly replied that a help desk had already been set up. “They will be here soon,” commented an administrative staff.
After a short deliberation, a staff member stepped outside to check the arrangements. “We have set up desks for the applicants. All the fans are also working. We also have a drinking water facility,” he said, dismissing the need for a volunteer to help out the students.
However, later, a senior faculty member explained how the low footfall in the college had prompted them to withdraw volunteers. “We hardly have students who come here to buy forms or have a query. I was planning on opening rooms for the students and parents to fill up their forms, but since there are a few students, we decided not to have volunteers,” he said.
Despite the low turnout of applicants at this information centre, applicants faced a sea of queries. “My ST certificate number is a long string of digits. I am not able to fill the entire number in this space allotted. The staff at the counter is asking me to write the entire number,” said Reshma, who had the same query at the college on Friday, but had to leave without an answer.
Similarly, many of the applicants faced problems while filling the optical mark recognition form. “I just called my friend to ask her regarding the subject code for Commerce. She has already filled her form,” said another applicant. Anag, a Commerce aspirant also had an issue with the space provided for writing the roll number.
Volunteers from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad,came to the rescue and helped the applicants to fill up the forms.
