Summary
This year, 96,913 of the 97,524 students (99.37 per cent) who took the engineering entrance test, held on April 30, got rank cards, there are 34,000-odd BTech seats filled through the Bengal JEE
The results of the Bengal joint entrance examination (JEE) were announced on Friday but there is no clarity yet on when the counselling for admission to BTech courses in state’s engineering colleges will start.
This year, 96,913 of the 97,524 students (99.37 per cent) who took the engineering entrance test, held on April 30, got rank cards. There are 34,000-odd BTech seats filled through the Bengal JEE.
“Bengal board students outnumbered students from other boards among the successful candidates. But among the first 1,000 candidates, there are more CBSE and ISC students than those from the Bengal board,” said a JEE board official.
Among the first 10, six students are from the CBSE, two from the Bengal board and one is from the ICSE council.
The seat matrix is yet to be drawn up because the deadline set by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for approving changes to the number of seats in colleges and courses offered by them is June 30, said Malayendu Saha, chairman of the JEE board.
The AICTE is the national-level apex body for technical education.
“The deadline set by the council of architecture and the pharmacy council is June 15. By this period, the three bodies will carry out inspections and grant affiliation and approval. Then the data will be shared with the universities, following which the universities will update the higher education department,” Saha said.
“After the seat matrix reaches the board, the schedule for the counselling will be announced.”
Last year, the JEE results were published on June 17.
This year, the results were announced three weeks earlier, but the board is yet to provide any clarity on the counselling dates.
Why did the board not wait for the AICTE and other apex bodies to come up with a seat matrix before announcing the results?
“We have several examinations to conduct. We cannot focus on other exams before publishing the results of the JEE, which is our flagship exam,” Saha told The Teleraph.
The three-phased counselling is unlikely to start before July, said an education department official.
This newspaper has reported that many candidates among the first 200 on the JEE merit list do not prefer to study in premier Bengal institutions such as Jadavpur University and head for the IITs and NITs, where the cost of study is much higher.
The Teleraph reported on November 24 that the two most coveted streams of engineering at JU — computer science and engineering, and electronics and telecommunication — together accounted for 70 of the 261 vacant BTech seats after counselling by the JEE board ended last year.
Thirty-eight of the 86 seats in computer science and engineering and 32 of the 86 seats in electronics and telecommunication remained vacant till the start of the decentralised (independent) counselling by JU.
JU has 1,253 BTech seats across 16 disciplines.
Last updated on 27 May 2023
