The state government on Tuesday permitted Jadavpur University and Calcutta University to hold independent counselling to fill BTech seats left vacant after several rounds of counselling by the state Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) board.
At JU, considered a premier institute for BTech programmes, 140 of the 1,253 seats remain vacant.
At CU, 140 of the 480 seats are vacant.
The higher education department, in an order, said the JEE board had completed the prescribed rounds of online centralised and decentralised counselling for admission to four-year BTech programmes. However, some seats remained vacant, prompting institutions to seek permission to fill them within the prescribed admission timeline.
“As a one-time relaxation, the state government hereby permits the concerned institutions to fill such residual vacancy seats,” the order
said.
On September 24, the vice-chancellors of JU and CU had urged the state government to allow the universities to conduct independent counselling to fill the vacant seats.
JU vice-chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said the university would conduct the counselling after the Puja vacation. CU is also likely to hold counselling after the vacation.
A JU professor said the JEE board had 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 still remained vacant,” he said.
In March, JU wrote to the previous Trinamool Congress government seeking permission to conduct its own counselling for BTech admissions immediately after the state JEE results were published, outside the board-run centralised process.
The move was to attract meritorious students who were often unwilling to wait for centralised counselling and instead took admission elsewhere.
However, the BJP government denied permission in June and asked the university to rely on the JEE board’s centralised counselling process.
Partha Pratim Roy, president of the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association, said: “The decentralised spot counselling should have been held much earlier to avoid delaying the start of classes.”