CATE mess: Bank server crashes,many miss deadline

“We also extended the deadline for submission of forms from 1 pm to 4 pm for morning colleges. Evening college counters will remain open till 9 pm instead of the usual 7 pm to accept forms,” said Tapan Basu from the English department.

Teachers in the department said they were flooded with calls the whole day. “Candidates wanted to know why we were not extending the deadline by a day or two. We could not,as the vendor who will be scanning the OMR sheets needs at least four days to scan them and upload admit card details to the DU website. Admit cards must be online by June 5 for the examination to be conducted smoothly on June 9,” Basu added.

Parents and candidates were not amused. “We went to the SBI branch near Kamla Nehru College at 10.30 am to get the demand draft. We mentioned that we were Scheduled Caste applicants,but they told us that we have to buy the forms. Then around 11 am,the systems crashed,” said a parent who refused to be identified.

CATE forms cannot be bought using cash this year; a demand draft of Rs 300 had to be drawn as a one-time application and examination fee. “They kept us waiting and ignored our repeated queries. We finally walked out,hurried to another bank,and got a DD. But the SBI staff misguided us. They said SC forms had to be bought from the North Campus. We came all the way here to find that SC candidates do not even have to take CATE,” another parent said.

Indications are that many candidates could not submit their application forms or even buy them. “We are still counting but estimates are that 9,000 application forms have been bought,” said a senior teacher of the English department.