Digital portal to store all student's data, including caste certificate

Illustration/Ravi Jadhav

Just one click on a student's name and you will see their detailed academic record and complete information on your screen, thanks to a 'digital locker' system to be introduced by the Admission Regulating Authority (ARA). Applicable for all professional courses such as engineering, medicine, architecture, pharmacy and nursing, this will soon be a reality. A new portal titled 'safalata.org' is ready to be launched, which saves the details of every student, starting from their Std X mark sheet to the latest; caste certificate, if admission is done on any quota; and other supporting documents, including identity card. Other than this collated form of data, a search engine will function simultaneously.

The ARA has recently had a pilot run of the process, wherein such details were recorded in digital format for admissions done in the academic year 2018-19. A total of 3,424 institutes have registered on the system and around 25 lakh documents have been uploaded. A total of 2,17,000 students' verification of documents was done online for the first time with simple clicks from the central office of ARA last week. The portal is going to be launched officially on January 31 and will be an integral part of all admissions for the academic year 2019-20 and going forward.

"All colleges will have to register on the system with complete details such as their approval, NAAC and other ratings, faculty, fee structure, including principal's name and contact details," said Anand Rayte, secretary of the ARA and commissioner of CET (Common Entrance Test) Cell, which conducts admissions for all the professional courses in Maharashtra. "After this initial task, students' details will be uploaded simultaneously with the admission process. All students during admission applications will have to upload their documents, which would be physically verified by the agency - initially. With this process, the details will be available in a centralised format. If there is any complaint in future regarding delay in enrolment of any student, it would be easier to resolve the grievances, as until now, students and colleges keep blaming each other."

After formation of ARAs in 2015, Maharashtra will be the first state to offer such a sophisticated practice of admissions, which will also resolve the next step of enrolment. Rayte explained, "After admissions, students had to approach the respective colleges for document verification, following which admissions were confirmed. It was the next step after this that the colleges had to enrol their confirmed admissions with affiliating universities without which the degree certificate cannot be awarded. Now, with ARA offering such detailed verified data on a single platform, the enrolment process will be more convenient. This will completely put an end to complaints of candidates asking us to intervene if they haven't received their degree, even after successfully clearing the course."

While colleges will have their own log-in ID and password, students, too, will be able to access the portal with the unique log-in ID and password given to them at the time of the admission process. ARA is still figuring out limitations of access on this portal. "It cannot be made completely public without having taken required security precautions. We are still brainstorming over the levels to which the users would have access to this portal," told Rayte.

21
lakh documents have been uploaded

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates