January 2013 - Informatics

E-Gov Products & ServicesON-LINE WEB COUNSELINGState Council of HigherEducation (APSCHE),Department of TechnicalEducation (DTE) ofGovernment of AndhraPradesh and NationalInformatics Center (NIC),Govt. of India togetherevolved a new system forstudents’ admission intovarious technical courses invarious colleges across thestate, through an onlineweb counseling process.VIJAY KUMARVISHWAKARMATechnical Directorvijay.vk@nic.inD. KRISHNA RAOSr. Technical Directordkrao@nic.inEarlier counseling systemwas operated at sixdifferent locationssimultaneously andeligible students have to visit any oneof these counseling centers to seekadmission. Students were to visit thecounseling centers in person and thesystem used to cater 1000 / 2000students a day, based on their rank inthe entrance examination. Based ontheir eligibility, options and availabilityof seats, candidates were admitted into various Colleges. Depending uponthe vacancies / vacated seats, studentshad to visit the counseling centersmore than once. The whole systemused to take about 30-40 days for eachround of counseling. The entireprocess of admissions to variouscourses (Polytechnic, Engg, MBA,MCA, M.Tech. etc.) used to take about5-6 months and the students have tovisit counseling center many times,waiting hours together for their turn.In order to reduce the admissiontime and difficulties faced by thecandidates in traveling to counselingcenters, it was proposed to have a webbased on-line counseling in the state.WEB BASED COUNSELINGAbout 50 Help line centers (HLC)are established throughout the Stateand student can visit any of the 50HLC for certificates verification.Students Bio-data is verified and thedatabase is updated with corrections ifany. Each student is given a scratchcard and scratch card secret number isknown only to the student. Afterverification, candidates can enter hisoptions over the net from any internetcenter, home or from any Help LineCenter. They can enter unlimitednumber of options and can edit theiroptions any number of times till thelast date.After the last date, all the options arefrozen and processed for seatallotment, based on the options given,entrance examination rank,reservation rules etc. Once theallotment is completed, results willbe published over web. Students candownload his allotment letter andreport at the college. Respectivecolleges update counselling databasewith the student joining details.In this way, the admission process isfaster thus saving academic workingdays and candidates have to come tothe counselling centres /help linecentre only once.SALIENT FEATURESl Web based Hassel free admissionl Students and Parents need not travelto Counseling Centers and wait in thequeues for long hours20 | informatics.nic.in | January 2013