Mumbai power failure: Exams affected, papers postponed

As the city faced a major power grid failure on Monday, students appearing for final year examination through an online process were a panicked lot. However, Mumbai University (MU) after cancelling the exams, assured that they would be rescheduled.

At KC College cluster, a WhatsApp message was sent out to students regarding postponement of all papers scheduled for Monday to Sunday (October 18). Dr Ashok Wadia, principal of Jai Hind College said, "Students will be given adequate notice of the new date as many have to make required arrangements to appear for the paper online."

Colleges have rescheduled exams for only those who could not appear. Representative pic

"My paper was to start at 11 am and the power-cut happened at around 10.15 am. I panicked but soon it was established that the issue was across the city. I then received a message from college that the exam will be rescheduled," said Kirti Soni, from a college in Matunga.

Neetal Ghag, a student from a Churchgate college said, "I stay in Borivali and there was no power-cut as such. I could complete the paper too. But now because the exam is rescheduled for all, I will have to reappear."

For students appearing for the exam from outside of Mumbai and didn't face any issue, colleges have done a review of their conditions and rescheduled exams for only those who could not appear. However, in some colleges, a blanket decision to reschedule the exam was taken.

Assuring that no student needs to panic, Vinod Patil, Director of Board of Examinations and Evaluation at the MU said, "Anyway there is a clause in this year's examination that if any student can't appear for the exam due to any technical issue, he/she shall be given another chance. While affiliated colleges have been asked to take individual decisions based on particular conditions, at university department examinations too it will be considered to give another chance to students if they faced the outage."

As per the information provided by Leeladhar Bansod, PRO of Mumbai University, out of total 42 clusters, exams were conducted in 32 clusters wherein out of a total of 19,279 students 18,950 could successfully appear for examinations. Out of the remaining 32, five clusters have partially rearranged examinations whereas 10 clusters have postponed it for all. In University departments, out of 582 students, 561 successfully appeared for examinations. For engineering and MCA college clusters, Monday's exams have been rescheduled to October 15.

Also Read: Mumbai power failure: CM Uddhav Thackeray demands answers after power grid fails

Engineering CET

Those appearing for engineering CET exams too faced the brunt of the outage on Monday. The entrance exam was held in two sessions on Monday by the Maharashtra CET Cell. In the morning, five test centres in the city faced the outage problem. Students appearing from these centres will be given another chance to appear. For students of the second session, the CET Cell said, "The state CET Cell will decide about the course of action, soon."

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