Centres of hope witnessing a rush of aspirants

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

Admissions to undergraduate engineering, medical and other professional courses are abuzz these days amongst the students clearing the NEET, JEE-Main, MHT-CET and other entrance tests with flying colours. Hence the internet cafes and offices of educational counsellors have turned into the centres of hope for these young aspirants filling up the application forms for their selection in a government or good and reputed colleges. These centres offer assistance in filling out the counselling forms to grab a medical or an engineering seat either through All India Quota (AIQ) or the respective state's counselling rounds. Needless to say, the Setu Seva Kendra (SSK) and its sub-centres (e-Seva Kendras) are also witnessing a heavy rush of parents and students since mid of June.

The newspaper took stock of the situation and found that the local internet cafe owners and education counsellors are facing tight schedules; a shortage of space to accommodate visitors and computer sets to fill up the application forms.

A female parent T. Kapse said, “Seeking assistance from an educational counsellor gives an insight to aspirants and helps in selecting colleges as per choice or preference in the state and the national level in CAP round admissions for NEET-UG. My counsellor will be helping out in filling up the errorless application form of my son so that he gets a medical seat in a good government medical college in Maharashtra. The consultation for admission to foreign universities in myriad professional courses is also available in the city.”

An educational counsellor Ankush Patil, who shifted to Pune from the city, said," My educational qualification and experience helped me to win the trust of people and stand on my feet with confidence in Pune. I have a long list of aspiring clients making rounds of the office or pursue on calls for guidance in filling NEET/JEE and other professional course forms. I and my team are working till midnight daily for the past many weeks. We are running short of time. We are unable to visit our homes to have meals, therefore, we are ordering the restaurant food online. Most of the time, my colleagues prefer eating pizzas and burgers to avoid raising from the chairs. I hope that our sacrifices get paid off in the form of getting admissions to all of my deserving clients in good government and their desired colleges."

Adds Minhaj Hashmi, who also offers assistance in filling up forms and getting certificates, “ Like all of them, I keep the parents and students updated about admissions to various courses and the documents required and preparations through a social media group. Indeed, we also face parents' anger when the server gets down or the system crashes. This is going on for the past few days due to the rush of filling up forms from all corners of the state and the country.”

Shoeb, who runs a sub-centre of Setu Suvidha Kendra, points out, “I am going busy for the last couple of months as the demand for documents (like residential, domicile, nationality, income etc) required to be enclosed with the application forms to different courses. I had to compile the eligible documents, upload them online and forward them to the concerned revenue authorities. After signatures, I download copies of the same and distribute them to the aspirants. The delay in service sparks disappointment among parents. I could not spend adequate valuable time with my children at home for the past couple of months. I have revised the schedule of opening and closing of my shop seeing the emergency.”