C-DAC hits back at IIT Delhi

After its portal to coordinate admissions to IIT
and NITs could not be utilised this year, the
Centre for Development of Advanced
Computing (C-DAC) has accused the IIT Delhi
of sabotaging its plan to alleviate the problem
of vacant seats in these institutions.
The C-DAC was developing a common portal to
host data of all rounds of seat allocation of
IITs and NITs that would help prevent
engineering aspirants from holding seats in
both the institutions, simultaneously, at the
time of admission.
The director of C-DAC has written to the
chairman of the board of governors of IIT
Delhi and the union HRD ministry protesting
the statement made by IIT Delhi’s HC Gupta
who held C-DAC partially responsible for the
plan falling through.
dna has reported earlier this month that the
IITs had decided to drop the proposed exercise
because of the C-DAC’s delay in developing a
fool-proof software. Professor Gupta, who is
the organising chairman of JEE-Advance this
year, had said that the software was not
prepared with enough time to test it, which is
one of the reasons why the proposal was
dropped.
In a strongly worded letter sent to the
chairman of the board of governors of IIT
Delhi, C-DAC director Rajat Moona has held
Gupta’s non-cooperation responsible for the
failure of the plan. In the letter, a copy of
which is with dna , Moona said the organising
chairman of JEE Advance was not forthcoming
on giving any inputs to the common portal,
both on its design and other feedback.
According to Moona, the common portal,
being developed by C-DAC, was ready by July 2
which was almost a week before the deadline,
but the software could not be tested because
of Gupta’s refusal to provide seat allotment
data.
In his defence, Gupta said he was just followin
what had been decided by the Joint Admission
Board of the IITs. “The JAB had said that the
first round of the counselling for the NITs
would only begin after the IIT’s first round is
over. How could I share any material before
July 8 (when the first round was scheduled to
get over)?” he said.