Fee portal woes leave Chandigarh govt schoolteachers doubling up as troubleshooters

Chandigarh: Technical glitches and repeated verification requirements on the Chandigarh Education Department’s online fee payment portal for govt schools are causing inconvenience to parents and students while substantially increasing workload for teachers, who say they are frequently required to intervene manually to resolve failed transactions.

The portal, introduced last year to facilitate digital fee submission in government schools, has drawn complaints this academic session over what teachers describe as a cumbersome process involving repeated logins, payment restrictions and dependency on class teachers to reactivate failed transactions.

A key change this year, teachers said, is that fees can no longer be deposited for the entire academic year in one go. Instead, parents are required to make payments separately every month, increasing the frequency of portal use and, consequently, technical difficulties.

Under the existing system, parents or students are required to log into the fee portal using student-related credentials, including Permanent Account Number (PAN) details. After selecting the month for which the payment is to be made, users are redirected to payment gateways offering options such as UPI, debit card, credit card and internet banking.

However, according to teachers, problems frequently occur during the payment stage.

“Parents often call saying the screen starts moving up and down or gets stuck when they are trying to complete the payment after selecting mode. Many become unsure whether the amount has been deducted or the transaction failed,” said a teacher at a government school, requesting anonymity. “When they go back or refresh the page, they have to begin the process from scratch.”

Teachers said the issue becomes more complicated because the portal does not immediately permit another payment attempt.

If a payment fails or remains incomplete, users reportedly cannot retry the transaction for nearly two hours. During this period, parents are required to log into the portal again and initiate a “double verification” request. The request is then routed to the class in-charge, who has to log in through his or her official credentials and verify the student’s case before another payment attempt can be made.

“In theory, it is an online system, but practically we are manually enabling payments,” said another teacher. “Students contact us repeatedly because they are unable to pay. We have to specifically sit down, open our login and approve requests before they can try again.”

Teachers said failed transactions due to banking or payment gateway issues pose an additional challenge. In such cases, users are often unable to retry the payment for nearly 24 hours, adding to anxiety among parents over pending fee deadlines.

“Whenever the process fails, the burden eventually comes to teachers,” another teacher said. “We are not only teaching but also resolving technical issues linked to payments. If every failed attempt requires human intervention, then the purpose of digitisation gets defeated.”

Several teachers also questioned the discontinuation of the annual fee payment option available last year, saying it had reduced repeated interactions with the portal and minimised technical complications.

“Last year, many parents simply deposited the full-year fee and were done,” said a senior teacher. “Now every month becomes a fresh exercise. The same issue keeps repeating again and again.”

While the online system was aimed at streamlining fee collection and reducing paperwork, teachers said recurring glitches and repeated verification requirements have instead made the process more time-consuming, particularly for school staff handling repeated parent queries.

BOX- How the fee portal works and where issues arise

Parents/students log into the portal using details and select the month for fee payment; payment gateways offer UPI, debit card, credit card and net banking options; users report screen glitches during payment stage, creating confusion over transaction status; failed transactions often require users to restart the process; payment cannot be retried immediately and may remain blocked for nearly two hours; parents must initiate “double verification” and contact the class in-charge; teachers log in separately through official IDs to approve retry requests; bank/payment gateway failures may delay another attempt for up to 24 hours; unlike last year, annual fee payment option unavailable, requiring monthly payments.