Mumbai: DTE tries to pacify panicky pupils with 'technical glitch'

Candidates and parents protest outside DTE office on Monday

Confused and angry candidates of direct second year engineering admissions stormed the office of the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) last morning, following the goof-up in its Centralised Admission Process round 2. Around 700 candidates reached the office in CST, demanding clarity, so that they could either confirm their admissions or wait for the next list.

mid-day had reported yesterday on the Sunday shock these engineering diploma holders had got - some saw changes in their allotted colleges, while some didn't have any in the second merit list. "On Monday, when we reached the DTE office in huge numbers, all they said was a technical glitch had resulted in two different lists. It is really irresponsible on DTE's part to make such a mistake when thousands are anxiously waiting for admissions. But worse was that they didn't even bother putting up this explanation on the website. Had they done that right at the start, there would've been no confusion or panic," said a parent.

A protesting candidate said, "Out of panic, several of us froze the college allotted in the second list, despite not being sure of joining it." Sainath Durge, core member of Yuva Sena, which led the protest on Monday, said, "This is a major goof-up on part of the DTE, which has been conducting online admissions for many years now. We are demanding that an inquiry be conducted into the technology service provider for the admission system." DTE director Abhay Wagh was unavailable for comment even yesterday.

700
Number of protesting candidates outside DTE's office

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