As the final phase of engineering counselling came to an end on Tuesday, about 4,000 seats in the most sought-after courses in top 10 engineering colleges are likely to remain vacant, simply because students were not given the option to choose them.
This means that seats for popular courses in Computer Science Engineering, including emerging areas like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Cyber Security or Internet of Things, are vacant now, and unless another opportunity is given to students, these are likely to go waste.
These seats are from colleges such as CVR College of Engineering, CBIT, Vasavi, VNR Vignan Jyothi, KMIT, Vardhaman, Sreenidhi, MVSR and some other NBA accredited institutions, which are always the first choice of students and parents.
Reimbursement burden?
The seats were not added to the counselling by the government apparently after officials cited an additional fee reimbursement burden on it despite the JNTU Hyderabad sending the list after the AICTE permitted these colleges to have additional seats as per norms.
Students said this was an injustice to them and asked why should they lose out an opportunity to study in a college with good infrastructure and placement record and a stream of their choice when seats were available.
The higher burden on government doesn’t hold any water, since the students’ number remains the same. The government will pay for the same number of eligible students, irrespective of the seats available, argued those who missed out.
The government pays ₹35,000 to all eligible students, irrespective of the fee charged by colleges. Only the top 10,000 rankers are paid the full fee if they meet the fee reimbursement criteria. So the argument that the fee reimbursement burden will increase with the addition of seats is imaginative.
Top colleges, on the other hand, argued that the High Court has also asked the government to consider the request in the interests of students. These colleges moved the court seeking its help to include the additional seats in the convenor quota as students will have better options.
Since the third phase of seat allotment is already completed on Tuesday, these colleges said that another round of counselling will provide better opportunities.
Interestingly, 2,393 students did not get allotment even after the final phase due to various reasons. This apart, students already admitted also get an opportunity to slide into better courses and better colleges. Ultimately, that is what they wish for.