Jadavpur University will hold its own counselling from October 28 to 31 to fill 140 BTech seats that remained vacant after several rounds of counselling by the state joint entrance examination (JEE) board.
Calcutta University (CU) will conduct independent counselling on October 30 and 31 to fill 148 BTech seats that remained vacant after the board-run counselling.
JU has 1,193 BTech seats, while CU offers 482.
The two universities announced their counselling schedules on Tuesday, two days after the state government allowed institutions offering BTech programmes to conduct independent counselling to fill seats left vacant after several rounds of centralised and decentralised counselling by the JEE board.
According to a JU notice, prospective BTech students can apply to participate in the university’s counselling from October 15 to 23.
“We will start the counselling on October 28. The university plans to hold counselling for four days,” a JU professor said.
JU vice-chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharjee, however, expressed concern over the delayed admissions, saying students would struggle to cope with the late start.
BTech classes at JU began on October 12 this year.
“Those who take part in the counselling scheduled for late October will start their classes in November. We fear they will struggle to cope with the delayed admission,” he said.
“I think BTech classes should start in July anyway. The IITs and NITs start their classes well before us. We are lagging,” he said.
The vice chancellor said JU had written to the state government in March, seeking permission to conduct its own BTech admission counselling immediately after the state JEE results were announced, outside the board-run centralised process.
The move was intended to attract meritorious students who were often unwilling to wait for centralised counselling and instead secured admission elsewhere to start classes at the earliest, Bhattacharjee said.
A JU official said the BJP government, which came to power in early May, denied permission in June and asked the university to rely on the JEE board’s centralised counselling process.
“We will again take it up with the state government so that JU is allowed to hold independent counselling immediately after the publication of the JEE results. Through an independent process from the very start, we can launch classes early and attract bright students,” he said.
A CU professor said the JEE board, which had traditionally conducted centralised counselling, introduced decentralised counselling this year.
“Earlier, after the centralised counselling process, engineering colleges were left to conduct independent counselling. But this time, the board delayed the process by deciding to conduct two rounds of decentralised counselling under its supervision to maintain vigilance in filling vacant seats. But seats remained vacant,” he said.