Hyderabad:
The protests over Telangana has turned the admission process for about 75,000 aspiring engineering students in the southern and coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh into a big hassle.
Life is virtually paralysed in 13 districts called the Seemandhra region where public transport is off the road and government staff, including college employees, is on strike in their demand that Andhra Pradesh should not be divided. In the midst of the chaos, the students have to get their certificates verified by authorities as part of the counseling process, which is the first stage in the process of admission.
Counselling was to begin on Monday for the students aspiring to get admission to the over-700 colleges in the state. The process was to happen at 66 helpline centres, 34 of which are in the Seemandhra and 22 in Telangana regions.
But several centres in Seemandhra region did not open because either the concerned personnel did not turn up or there were disruptions due to the protests.
Sai, a student Joint Action Committee leader, says while protesting outside the Government College for Women in Guntur that till there is clarity on the state, they want to stop engineering counselling.
Their stand has turned the admission process into a nightmare.
Daniel had travelled from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad for his son's admission to engineering college. With road transportation buses on strike, travelling proved to be a task. "For 8 hours we were standing, just waiting. I tried for train reservation. Even sleeper was full. Even autorickshaw was not there. My friends had to drop us.''
Sheikh Jabi, her father and grandfather started at 2 in the morning from Macherla in Guntur for Hyderabad, 170 km away.
Chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh Council for Higher Education, Professor Jayaprakash Rao, says despite the disturbances, the students would not suffer.
"Agony could be that long distances students and their parents travel, go to helpline centres that are not working or have been obstructed, I feel sorry. But there will be no problem for the admission process,'' he says.
Though the centralised web-based counseling has made the process easier, the mandatory physical verification of certificates preceding that is what is giving the students and their parents a tough time.