Mumbai University is trying to designate exam centres for more than 600 first year BCom students from the Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL). While their exams are scheduled on March 30, the university has not managed to assign centres to a few hundreds students due to non-availability of colleges.

With several university exams starting almost at the same time, officials are finding it difficult to find colleges that would be available to be used for the exams of distance education students. According to an official from the university, there are close to 8,500 fresh students and 1,500 repeaters in the first year BCom registered with the IDOL. Also, most colleges are booked for the final exams of regular students, leaving lesser options for distance education students.

"We are trying to find centers for the IDOL students. The numbers are huge. Though we have managed to allot centers to most of them, there are around 500-600 students who are still without centers. We are trying to accommodate them," said the official.

The difficulty in finding centers for these students might delay the issue of hall tickets for their exams.

While IDOL's website claimed that the hall tickets for these students will be issued four days before the exam, sources claim it might get delayed by a day or two.

"Ideally, the hall tickets should be out by Monday, but the university is yet to complete the registration process of some of the students. Also, they are yet to find centers for more than 600 students, without which they cannot make hall tickets for these students," said the source.

University officials are working overtime to ensure none of the students suffer at the eleventh hour. D Harichandan, director of IDOL, said, "It is not a major problem. We are trying to sort it out. We have been working on it and will try to ensure that the hall tickets are out by Monday evening."

The university, for the first time, went online for admissions to all first year courses at IDOL. Due to the online process, which was handled by the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), the registration process of several first year BCom students is still incomplete.

The admission process got over in October-November. Even TYBCom students, whose exam forms were submitted online, got their hall tickets two days before the exam, which was when three colleges found that they were allotted more students than their capacity, leading to a last minute change in centers. Several students had to wait as late as till 8pm at the university to get their hall tickets a day before the exam.

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