Sale of vouchers for the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2013 began today. About 12,000 vouchers were sold in all and about 10,000 candidates registered. Of this, 80 per cent had bought the vouchers online. According to CAT Convenor Prof Rohit Kapoor of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore, the availability of e-vouchers brought in the huge numbers. “We have sent SMS and emails to everyone who registered today. It is no mean task for my team which has been up all night trying to ensure that the first day of CAT registration goes smoothly.”
Prof Kapoor did admit however that for an hour or so earlier in the day, there was an issue for those trying to buy the vouchers online. “Too many people came on the site at the same time at around 9.30 am. There appeared to be an overload but as the day progressed there were no further hassles,” he added.
E-vouchers also meant shorter queues outside Axis Bank branches, where the vouchers were available as well. For instance, an official from Axis Bank, Fort Branch, Mumbai said that last year on the first day, the bank had sold 200 vouchers and collected in excess of Rs 3 lakhs. However, this year, the bank sold only 80 applications and collected a little over Rs 1 lakh. At Axis Bank in Bandra, Mumbai, about 55 vouchers were sold. According to an official there, there was no rush like the previous years. At 8.30 am there were just two people in the line while in the previous years, people came in as early as 6.30 am to buy a voucher.
Only one person in the queue at Axis bank, Fort Branch, Mumbai at 12.30 pm
Pankti Solanki, an M.Com graduate who will be taking CAT for the third time, purchased a voucher from Axis Bank, Fort branch, Mumbai. When asked why she did not opt for e-vouchers, she said that since this is the first time e-vouchers were being introduced, she was not sure about how the CAT website would behave.
PaGaLGuY also registered for the CAT exam using e-vouchers. The entire process right from filling the forms, payment and registering for the exam was smooth and felt almost like buying a movie ticket. The SMS with the e-voucher code was sent within few minutes of making the payment. Two emails – the IIM CAT application and admit card – were also received moments after exiting the process.
However, the process was not as smooth for everyone. Aditya Jain, a working professional from Bangalore, said: “I was up since 9.30 am in the morning to register for the exam. When I finally got through through at 10.20 am, the transaction was successful but the page displayed a null message, I checked my bank account and the money was deducted. Now, I am not sure whether my registration has been done or not. If I try buying the e-voucher again or buy the offline voucher, I might lose the money paid in the first transaction. There has been no response on the helpline numbers and email.” Other candidates have also reported this problem. The IIM Indore office however states that it answered hundreds of calls today and answered similar queries.
Previous updates:
New CAT 2013 website now functional
(July 29, 2013) By PaGaLGuY News Service
The new website for Common Admission Test (CAT) 2013 has been unveiled. Candidates can get the details of the exam by logging on to http://www.cat2013.iimidr.ac.in. While the URL has been changed, the interface still looks pretty similar to the old one.
The old website is also functional which has added to some confusion among the candidates. However, it does not reflect the latest updates on CAT 2013. Prof Rohit Kapoor, CAT 2013 Convenor, said, “The website is currently not under our control. Moreover, the investigation is still going on. Hence, the two websites are running parallel to each other.”
Incidentally, the management departments of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) do not find a mention in the list of non-management institutions who have registered for the use of CAT 2013 scores. This year the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) committee at IIT Kharagpur was responsible for registration for the use of CAT 2013 scores on behalf of all IITs. This was a new practice as until last year, all the IITs registered individually. Managing GATE deadlines and getting the necessary approvals caused a delay in registering for the use of CAT 2013 scores.
Speaking on the reasons for the delay, G P Raja Sekhar, chairman, GATE-JAM informed, “We received the information about the CAT registrations a little late. We had to deal with a lot of crucial deadlines when it came to GATE as well. Also, before we initiated the process, we had to take approvals of the GATE committee at all institutes. We had a meeting to that effect at IIT Madras last week. I have spoken to the CAT authorities and have initiated the process today.” It is likely that management department of IITs will be placed under the list later this week.
Also, in this list, Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon has been wrongly placed under institutes from Punjab rather than Haryana. When apprised of this, Mukul Gupta, director, MDI said, “We are on the job and would get it corrected soon.”
IIMs to unveil new CAT URL with update info next week
(July 24, 2013) By Lajwanti D’Souza
The Common Admission Test (CAT) 2013 website is in for a revamp. Thanks to the ongoing investigation over the tampering of 80 CAT 2012 scores, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have decided to introduce a brand new interface and URL address for the upcoming CAT 2013 exam. The new site is expected to be unveiled on July 28, 2013 and will contain updates about CAT 2013. The current website still displays information about the CAT 2012.
For the first time since 2010, the IIMs will operate the CAT website independently, without the help of an external agency. Lucknow-based Web Weavers was appointed to host and operate the CAT site in 2010. In 2011, the agency was given the additional responsibility of supplying CAT scores to non-IIM schools.
However, the recent revelation that scores of 80 students who took CAT 2012 were fiddled with, led IIM authorities to believe that some lapse may have occurred on part of Web Weavers. While the IIMs have yet to take an official stand on the company, police believe that the company may be involved in the tampering. The company’s employee who was stationed in Kozhikode and worked with the CAT team there, fled on the very night the impostors issue came to light.
Kozhikode police investigating the case are perplexed as to why the IIM officials handed over tasks as important as supplying CAT scores to an external agency, which functions from a small office in Lucknow and comprises of only three employees. To which the IIM’s response is that the agency did in fact do a good job of the same tasks in the preceding year which was 2010. Rumours were rife that the owner of Web Weavers was arrested but police say that only a notice has been sent to him.
The high-level committee set up by Ministry of Human Resource Development to study the impostors issue has listed as one of its recommendations that henceforth the IIM conducting CAT will operate the site entirely on its own and no external agency be allowed access to the scores or to any other information regards the high-profile exam. The new website is a result of this recommendation.