05, Jul 2011

Mumbai:There is yet some hope for those aspiring to get into the top engineering schools of India. After the second round of admissions closed at the Indian Institutes of Technology, there were still 326 seats up for grabs. They will come up in the third round of admission, the details of which will be out July 10. Data from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur shows that after the second round, 326 students did not book their seats, as they were not happy with the courses that were allotted to them. This year, IITs took one more step to ensure that seats do not go abegging.

This year, three rounds of admission are being held for the IITs. “When the issue of seats falling vacant in the IITs, IT-BHU and ISM-Dhanbad was discussed, it was noted that the primary reason for the vacancies is that some students accept admission, deposit the advance amount and then do not join the course. It is hoped that conducting three rounds will reduce the resulting vacancies,” IIT-Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande said. After the first round closed, 299 seats were vacant, but some more students backed out later.

Every year, lakhs burn the midnight oil for months to get into the IITs. But when admissions closed in 2009, one fact emerged: there weren’t enough qualified candidates to fill up the seats on offer. Many seats were reserved for minority candidates. In that year, of the 1,265 seats reserved for scheduled caste students, 337 seats were lying vacant. Of the 659 reserved for scheduled tribe students, 458 remained unfilled, while 207 of 251 seats could not be filled up under the physically challenged quota. It was this paper that campaigned for a second round of admission, which the IITs conducted last year.

In 2010, about 100 seats remained unfilled after the admission process closed. The Joint Admission Board has advised students to desist from leaving a course once admission has been accepted.

Source:Times Of India