Having chosen the option of online applications this year, EAMCET officials have not only saved man power and unnecessary problems for students, but have also saved nearly 1,000 full-grown trees from being chopped off and about 3.5 lakh gallons of water that would be required to grow those trees.
With nearly four lakh applicants expected to the take the test this year, officials would have printed about five lakh application forms, which according to rough estimates would have been around 50 tonnes of waste. Paper industry experts say 17 trees are cut for each tonne of paper and 7,000 gallons of water is used to raise one tree.
Rough estimates reveal that if five lakh applications of EAMCET are to be printed, more than 850 trees would have to be cut and to raise the same number of trees 3.5 lakh gallons would have to be used.
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EAMCET applications used to be printed using 60 GSM paper and each booklet would have 30 pages, till last year.
This apart, there were tonnes of paper used in the form of photocopied certificates attached to each form. “Economic efficiency apart, we are saving precious resources like trees and water,” says EAMCET-2012 convenor, N.V. Ramana Rao.
Though only four lakh candidates are expected to appear, officials would have printed five lakh applications as additional forms that would be kept at various centres like post offices, banks and regional offices to meet the unexpected demand. The environment is further helped as transport is not needed in forms of trucks that would go to and fro various regional centres and the head office at Hyderabad. “It is not only saving costs but also precious petrol.”
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Online applications also imply that officials do not have to be worried about loss in transportation.
There is always a fear that an application might get lost while being transported re-applying means double the burden on students and officials.
“Such fears have been cut down totally as candidates can not only see their application landing safely but also get a confirmation in a few seconds,” an official says. Above all, it relieves students of all tensions about applications and they can concentrate better on the exam.