CSAB apologises for goof-ups

Complaints galore from students of AP, Odisha, UP over seats allotment At a time when the JEE Main format comes under fire from many students, parents and academicians across the country, the Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB), which has been allotting seats to rankers basing on their preferences in qualifying as well as entrance exams, has messed up things further by altering institutions and branches to many rankers. Although the CSAB termed the goof up mostly happened with regard to states like Odisha and UP, it was done in case of our students also. At least twenty rankers from Andhra Pradesh have lost an assured branch of their choice in the institutes they strongly wished to join after first round of seat allocation. The authorities have refused to entertain any complaints from the students, stating that whatever list that has been uploaded in the website is final and cannot be contested or altered. Similar complaints from several states have also lodged and hundreds of students are now in a fix to join or not at the allotted institutes. Some have decided to join rather reluctantly with a view to change the branch after first year. The Director and Chairman of CSAB-2013, Prof Sunil Kumar Sarangi has expressed his apologies for all the goof ups that have been occurred. "In the process of allotment, there has been an unfortunate mix up and some of the students' choices were not acceded to and the allotted branch or institute has changed. Some of you who did not have an allotment on a specified day may have got one another day. Some names which have been mentioned the previous day were found missing the next day. On behalf of the CSAB-2013 admission l beg you my unqualified apology" he clearly stated in a letter communicated to the successful students. He attributed the mix up due to a computer glitch, which in turn originated from the fact that the name of "Orissa" state has changed to "Odisha". "While the CBSE data base uses the old name, the CSAB data base uses the new one, and they both have assigned codes accordingly. Thus, the information, specifically the data on "home state" quota of 50 percent NIT in seat allotment did not match properly. There were also a couple of minor glitches involving UP and Uttarakhand students, and involving dual (architecture and engineering) seat allocation" Prof Sarangi explained. "CSAB system sometimes appeared confusing. They have not stated clearly the availability of seats under reserved categories in particular NITs. I could not get the CSE branch at NIT, Roorkee or NIT, Mangalore due to this erroneous system" Sravan Gupta a ranker from Hyderabad lamented.