This story is from June 27, 2016

DU’s paperless initiative saved 4,500 trees, money, resources

Delhi University not only saved its aspirants from the scorching heat, but also around 4,500 trees or nearly 72,000 rims of paper through its online registration process for undergraduate admission 2016-17, held over 22 days
DU’s paperless initiative saved 4,500 trees, money, resources
File photo of DU admissions till last year
New Delhi: Delhi University not only saved its aspirants from the scorching heat, but also around 4,500 trees or nearly 72,000 rims of paper through its online registration process for undergraduate admission 2016-17, held over 22 days.
Going by the total number of registrations this year, the university, had it not gone digital, would have required at least 3,60,460 prospectuses, which would have required 3.53 crore pages.
So essentially the process saved that many pages, its printing cost, which includes ink, electricity, transportation and other logistics.
By doing away with physical forms from this year, DU made the process completely online. Even the admission in the reserved category for persons with disability, sports and extracurricular activities, and non-collegiate women education board were clubbed along with the other categories for online registration. The university had already made the postgraduate admission process online since last year.
According to a DU administration official, who was responding to a TOI query, the process — apart from conserving thousands of trees — also saved energy and money required to run the form counters and other offices for public dealing during admissions. Also, 1,25,280 applicants are from outside Delhi and the online process saved them from coming to Delhi and spending time and money on travel and accommodation.
The university also received around Rs 2.30 crore as online registration fee, which will go to the colleges.
Terming the initiative as the “brainchild” of the vice chancellor, professor Tarun Kumar Das, registrar, DU, said: “It has been a team work led by professor Yogesh K Tyagi, our VC. The environmental impact is huge simply because DU is a large university and lakhs of students apply every year to our programmes.”

He added, “The amount of paper, as well as the money spent on electricity and human resources for the earlier process was huge. This is DU’s contribution through ‘Digital DU’ initiative, for which our VC had put in a lot of hard work to see it through.”
Another change, though not directly initiated by the university, but a fallout of the online registration process is that private organisations like coaching centres and students’ groups were mostly missing from the campus this year. It was during this time of the year that these private colleges, coaching centres and students groups used to flock the campus and circulate pamphlets and posters.
“Even the streets of DU are not littered with papers this year,” said Das.
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