Technical glitch troubles EAPCET counselling aspirants

Ongole : The technical glitch in the AP EAPCET Admissions website is causing trouble for the candidates who wish to register for counselling. The condition to upload the latest caste certificate to complete the registration is forcing the applicants to go to the MeeSeva centres and the Ward and Village Secretariats to get the certificate immediately, as the last date for registration is approaching fast.

The Department of Technical Education and the Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education opened a website for the admissions of candidates who qualified for the AP EAPCET. The candidates desiring to attend the online counselling process have to register on the website and pay the processing fee online by July 7. The certificate verification and the options entry end by July 10 and July 12 respectively. The seats will be allotted on July 16, and the students have to report to the college by July 22.

However, the candidates who wish to attend the counselling are not able to complete the first step, the registration and the processing fee payment. Several students, who want to avail the reservation facility, faced problem in uploading the caste certificate issued before April 2024.

The certificates issued from the Mee Seva and the Ward and Village Secretariats, up to March 31, are issued under the academic year 2023-24. The certificates issued from April are being issued under the academic year 2024-25, and the AP EAPCET admissions website is only accepting these certificates.

G Naga Chaitanya, a candidate who tried to register on the website and avail of the reservation, said that his father got the caste certificate when he applied for the entrance test, but the website is not accepting the certificate number now. He questioned why do not the APSCHE accept the earlier certificate when the government had already ordered to consider the integrated caste certificate issued in any year.

A Mee Seva centre operator in Ongole explained that they are directing the students who are coming to them to apply for the caste certificate to the ward secretariats. He said that the VROs are immediately registering their applications and the tahsildar is also clearing them on a day-to-day basis considering the requirements of the students.

He said that they are applying for the EWS certificates only. He said that the students trying to register and pay the processing fee are also facing issues with the payment gateway. He said that though they have attempted several times, they couldn’t complete the payments.

V Nageswara Rao, parent of a student said that the employees in the ward and village secretariats did not issue the certificates after March 16, the day of notification of General Elections 2024, up to June 10.

He said that his request was reasonable, and requested the authorities to rectify the issues in the admissions website and extend the deadline up to July 10, at least to give enough time for the candidates.