The Gujarat government on Thursday told the legislative assembly that more than 44 per cent seats in various engineering colleges, including self-financed institutes, in the state, which comes to more than 62,000 seats, remained vacant in 2023.

The data tabled in the House also revealed that more than 32 per cent or 7,742 seats of Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Computer Application (MCA) courses remained vacant in the previous year.

Responding to a set of questions raised by Congress MLAs during the Question Hour on Thursday about the vacant seats in colleges offering technical and professional courses, state Higher and Technical Education Minister Rushikesh Patel said various government-run, grant-in-aid and self-financed colleges have 1,40,852 seats of engineering degree and diploma courses in Gujarat.

Of these 1,40,852 seats, 71,629 are of degree engineering courses, while 69,223 are of diploma engineering courses, he said.

The minister informed the House that 78,540 seats (55.76 per cent) were filled last year, while 62,311 seats (44.23 per cent) of these degree and diploma courses remained vacant.

A total of 38,811 seats of degree engineering and as many as 23,501 seats of diploma engineering remained vacant in 2023, Patel said.

Some of the reasons the minister cited for this situation include less registration in comparison to available seats and students opting for admissions in top engineering institutes, such as IIT and NIT, in India and abroad.

Since the criteria for admission in diploma colleges is passing Class 10, seats remain vacant as students opt for studying in Class 11 or go for other courses, such as IIT and nursing, Patel said in his written reply.

As per the data tabled in the House, of the total 23,791 seats of MBA and MCA courses, 32.54 per cent, that is 7,742 were vacant, while 16,049 seats (67.45 per cent) were filled last year.

Different institutions, including government and private, offer 16,310 seats of MBA and 7,481 seats of MCA.

Of those 7,742 vacant seats, 4,675 seats were of MBA while 3,067 seats were of MCA.

Patel said seats remain vacant because instead of choosing MBA or MCA, students go for other courses after finishing their graduation or they take up a job or other profession.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.