Amid concerns raised by the Yuva Sena on Friday over a statewide technical crash during the First Year Junior College (FYJC) admissions, Maharashtra education authorities have assured that corrective measures are underway.
“Two computer experts have been appointed in each division, and we hope the system will now run smoothly,” said Sandeep Sangave, Deputy Director of Education (Mumbai Division), in response to a formal representation submitted by Yuva Sena Senate members.
The glitch occurred on May 21, the very first day of the Centralised Admission Process (CAP), when the education department’s online portal crashed due to an unexpected surge in traffic. Initially set to run until May 28, the registration and preference submission window has now been extended to June 3. The process will resume on May 26.
This year marks the first time that the CAP system is being implemented across all junior colleges in Maharashtra, having previously been limited to Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, and Amravati. According to experts, the sudden expansion dramatically increased the number of users accessing the portal, leading to system overload and user frustration.
Following the disruption, a Yuva Sena delegation led by Senate member Pradeep Sawant and including Sheetal Sheth Devrukhakar, Milind Satam, Shashikant Zore, and former Senate member Rajan Kolambekar met with Sangave to demand that the department not announce any revised schedule until the portal is fully functional. The department had already announced the revised schedule on Thursday.
“This year, for the first time, the Class 11 admission process is being conducted online across the entire state. However, the portal crashed on day one, leaving students and parents distressed,” their letter stated. The Sena members pointed out that many applicants lacked access to reliable internet, computers, or printers, making an unstable portal even more problematic.
While the education department attributed the pause to efforts to enhance mobile-friendliness and usability, education experts and student groups have argued that the infrastructure should have been upgraded well in advance to accommodate the increased load.
“We believe that the servers of the education department are still incapable of handling such a large scale of applicants from throughout the state. Instead of implementing CAP hastily, the department should first build an infrastructure that’s capable of handling the load and stick to CAP for a few districts only,” Sawant told The Free Press Journal.
In a parallel development, MLA Varun Satish Sardesai, representing Bandra East and serving as Shiv Sena (UBT) secretary, also wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday, urging immediate intervention. “It has come to notice that on the first day, many students and parents faced numerous technical issues with the system,” he noted in the letter to the CM.
“In rural areas especially, the lack of adequate internet access and the absence of laptops have created serious obstacles. Due to this, many students have been unable to complete their admission forms,” Sardesai wrote. He urged the Chief Minister to “temporarily suspend the current admission process until all the necessary systems and technical arrangements are fully in place”.
