NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University extended the deadline by three days for applying for admissions to the varsity to help students, officials said Monday.
Sources said the date was also extended since the server was working a little slow due to high number of applications.
The dates for applying for application submission and registration for JNU Entrance Exams (JNUEE) and Combined Entrance Examination for Biotechnology (CEEB) were extended from April 15 to April 18, they added.
The deadline for application fee payment has also been extended from April 16 to April 19.
As of April 15, 87,950 students have submitted their application forms and paid the fees for JNUEE 2019-20, the varsity said.
"This is a record number of applications received for JNUEE as compared to previous years and still more are expected to apply as the deadline has been extended. The total number of candidates who applied for JNUEE held for the academic years 2017 and 2018 were 51,818 and 69,605 respectively," the varsity said in a statement.
The JNU students' union accused the varsity of "lying" about the number of students.
In the press release it claims that this year record number of students are appearing for JNUEE i.e.,around 88,000 students up from 69,000 of 2018 and 51,000 of 2017, they said.
However, a cursory look at press report of 2017 in which administration officials claimed that in 2017 a 'record' 1,05,000 people will sit for exam.
"Why is JNU admin lying? In actuality the number of applicants have reduced due to seat cuts, non-fulfilment of reservations, vacant seats and constant fund cuts by present administration. Why is administration fudging data?" they said.
Considering that a candidate is allowed to apply for up to three programmes of study in a single application, the total number of candidates appearing for the entrance test amounts to 1,65,000 this year, the varsity said.
Even last year's number of 1.05 lakh means that students applied for that many courses.
The JNU has partnered with the National Testing Agency (NTA) for conducting the Computer Based Entrance Test.
According to a varsity official, the date has been extended to help students.
"Students were writing to us to extend the deadline and in the last two days, there was pressure on the server and it was being a little slow.
Some students could not submit documents and that was the reason for extending the deadline," he added.