Buffer capacity helps IIMs extend CAT only by a day

Following the decision of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Prometric to extend the testing period for Common Admission Test (CAT) by a day to December 8, students were apprehensive whether one extra day would be enough to accommodate all rescheduled students.

However, it is learnt that as a precaution, the institutes had scheduled tests for the 10-day exam such that only 85 per cent of the capacity was utilised. This has come in handy to the IIMs, as the exam needs only one more extra day to complete the process.

"On any given day, including all 361 labs and two sessions, we have total seating capacity of over 32,000 and we are using only 85 per cent of it.  We believe December 8 should be sufficient to accommodate all students, considering the additional capacity with us," said Satish Deodhar, convenor of CAT 2009.

Of the 20,000-odd students who couldn't take the test so far, Deodhar said around 1,500 were no-shows, while the rest needed to be rescheduled.  So far more than half of them have been rescheduled, he added. Sources also say that the IIMs are open to a 12th day of test if required.

CAT 2009 was scheduled to run for 10 days -- from November 28 to December 7, 2009. It will now end on December 8 (Day 11), and CAT 2009 will be held over one morning session in 20 cities. These cities are: Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Pune and Varanasi. There are a total of 104 centres and 361 labs.

Overall, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) would gladly forget last week. Their maiden attempt to make their Common Admission Test (CAT) computer-based ran into rough waters in the first three days with close to 20,000 students not able to take the exam due to technical glitches.

However, facing the criticism, the IIMs took stock of the situation, and later frantically worked to ensure  the test is taken smoothly. The number of dysfunctional labs has consistently come down in the last few days of the exam. From 50 labs in 22 centres being shut down on November 29, the number has dropped to one centre in Lucknow on December 5.

The IIMs have been candid that they had failed to execute the job in the first few days.They saw their idea crash when a virus named 'Conficker' made a mess out of the systems. Students faced problems like logging in, searching their names in the database, clicking on options and submitting their biometric details. Meanwhile, internet experts and management test-preparing institutes rubbished the virus claims and attributed the glitches to "lack of preparedness on the part of Prometric and the IIMs".

Such was the chaos on the first three days that an angry student community began demanding that the IIMs scrap the test and conduct fresh examinations. This was especially the case with students who had been rescheduled to new dates which were clashing with their university exams. Out-station students were also frustrated by the change of dates.

More criticism came from the HRD ministry, which demanded a report on the fiasco from Satish Deodhar, Convenor of CAT 2009.