Help desks set up by DU a saving grace for aspiring students

New Delhi: “Majority of the cyber cafes I went to were charging very high price just to fill up an application form, so I turned towards the help desks set up by various colleges. With proper computer kiosks and Internet facility, they have been providing assistance to all students regarding the registration process very patiently,” said Vaibhav Jha, a Delhi University aspirant from UP. In a bid to ease the registration woes of the applicants, DU is running about 42 centres for online registration assistance across its colleges.

The assistance centres are offering facilities to candidates including computers with Internet access, printers, scanners, and helpdesks with teaching faculty and student volunteers to guide the applicants as well as separate computer facility especially for PwD candidates.

“We have been assisting a lot of students from rural areas regarding the online registration process. Either some of them are not much aware about how to go through the whole process or some of them do not have an Internet connectivity at their place,” a volunteer at ARSD college said.

Most of the assistance centres in colleges like Acharya Narendra Dev College, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Hindu College, Jesus and Mary College, PGDAV College, Shivaji College, Sri Venkateswara College, SRCC, Zakir Hussain College (M and E) among others function between 10 am to 1 pm only on weekdays. Whereas some colleges like Kamla Nehru, Lady Sri Ram College and Kalindi College provide assistance also on Saturdays.

“A café in North campus missed a few points in my form as people there were in a hurry to attend to the maximum customers and also charged a hefty amount of Rs 600. I was confused what to do next, so I approached the helpdesk at Hindu College, where the volunteers helped me fill up a fresh form without a hurry,” 18-year-old aspirant Nityashree said.

The volunteers are addressing the aspirants’ confusion, filling their forms but also making online payment on their behalf after accepting cash from them.

Last year, even the political student organisations had set up help desks outside various colleges to help the aspirants in the online registration process.