Bhubaneswar, Aug. 25: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has criticised the e-admission process for colleges in the state. In its latest report, CAG states that the system lacked validation controls at many stages and the design did not cater to the provisions as mentioned in the common prospectus.

The CAG report reveals that the system, weakened by wrong data inputs and deficient process control, has led to incorrect selection of applicants. “The deficient system design and backend modification or deletion of data for correction of errors (has) made the system prone to manipulations,” the report said.

In a bid to streamline the education system, the state government had introduced the e-college project in 2007 under the direct control of the Orissa Computer Application Centre (Ocac) with a budgetary allocation of Rs 2 crore. A private firm was roped in to execute the project. Later, e-admissions was introduced in 2009 in 60 junior colleges, including nine aided Plus Two institutions, in those districts which did not have government colleges. The same firm was awarded the contract to develop the Student Academic Management System (Sams) to manage student information while the Ocac was designated as the implementing agency.

The budgetary allocation for the project was increased from Rs 2 crore to Rs 16.75 crore and the money was given to the Ocac in 2008-09 under the 12th Finance Commission.

Expenditure of Rs 7.28 crore was made for different components, including Rs 3.03 crore for hardware, Rs 2.60 crore for software and Rs 1.05 crore for site preparation, (as of March, 2010). The norm of keeping 10 per cent of the project cost as bank guarantee was violated. Interestingly, Ocac released around Rs 1.69 crore in the name of software development for extension of e-college project in 2009 and nearly Rs 1.78 crore for software development in 2010.

This year, 1,301 junior colleges and 162 degree colleges of the state were included in the e-admission process. However, several drawbacks of the online system made it quite nerve-racking for a significant section of the students.

Students are happy that the CAG report has brought the issue into focus. The report also states the hardware and software was purchased without assessing the actual requirements while it had been decided in various steering committee meetings to evaluate the actual requirements comprehensively and to procure hardware and software through the directorate general of supplies and disposals rate contract holder. A scrutiny of the system has also revealed a number of deficiencies.

The report said the system had not been designed with in-built control for total checks and automatic calculation of total marks secured by an applicant. Even the admission process was not completely automatic. While the selection for admission was done through the system, the verification of the original documents in respect of weightage and reservation were done manually through the validating team in colleges.

After the CAG raised questions on the efficacy of the online system, the government’s direction to the Council of Higher Secondary Education to deposit Rs 20 directly for registration of each student in Ocac-Sams central fund has stirred a hornet’s nest.

Earlier, Rs 3 was spent for registration of each student and the remaining money was utilised for the expenditure and maintenance of the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE). However, the fee was diverted to the Ocac to give a cut to the private company, alleged CHSE employees.