HYDERABAD:The spate of fraud cases in the Eamcet web-based counselling has been giving the jitters to officials, students and parents.Questions are being asked about the security of the new system.

Officials of the AP State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) have denied that there has been any hacking into the system. They maintain that the fraudsters have only exploited the innocence of some students by getting them to reveal their log-in ID and password.

Brokers and college managements have been conniving to entrap rural students, who are not well-versed with computers and disclose their passwords to Internet centre operators who then manipulate the options given by the students to ensure that seats are filled in the colleges of their (the broker’s) choice.

The brokers collect a commission from the managements for steering students in their direction.

“We have conducted awareness programmes in all the districts for students on the web-based counselling. We have repeatedly informed them not to disclose their passwords to anyone. Despite this, some students are doing this out of innocence or for whatever reasons,” said Prof Jayaprakash Rao, chairman, APSCHE.