Most reserved seats vacant in colleges

KOLKATA: Several colleges affiliated to Calcutta University on Wednesday held an emergency admission committee meeting and decided to invite fresh online applications. The move came aday after the state government announced to extend the dates for admissions to undergraduate courses up to August 20.

According to college sources, the vacancies are highest in reserved category.On Wednesday, CU sought information from all 131 colleges regarding vacancies till July 10. “We shall begin the process of de-reservation of seats that have remained vacant,” said a CU official.
Lady Brabourne College, for example, has around 40 vacancies in 19 honours subjects. “We have called for a meeting on Thursday. We already have a comprehensive list in every discipline. We may decide to select students who have their names on the non-published merit list or call for fresh applications,” said principal Seuli Sarkar.
At Surendranath College, around 150 seats are vacant in Honours courses. “We have 26 general subjects and 22 honours subjects. Those subjects in which the merit panel have been exhausted will allow fresh applications,” said principal Indranil Kar. The college will take a decision on awarding attendance to students after an approval from CU. Naba Ballygunge Mahavidyalaya principal Sukamal Dutta added: “We have 30 vacancies in the BA (H) and 20 vacancies in BCom (H) courses. We hope to begin classes within a week.”
The Bhowanipore Education Society College vice-chairman, Miraj Shah, said the college has 200 vacancies. “We shall soon open our portal to seek applications,” he said.
“The main hurdle now is to de-reserve the seats. Colleges can apply to the Backward Classes Welfare Cell to de-reserve the seats after completing three rounds of counselling in each discipline. It is a long process and in several institutes, the merit list is exhausted much before the third round of counselling. Yet, the seats fall vacant after some students leave the college for better options. In such cases, what will the college do? There is no clear instructions in the CU statute over de-reserving seats,” said a higher education department source.