Calcutta University will conduct counselling on its own on December 8 to fill up 49 BTech seats that are lying vacant.
Seats at CU were filled when the state JEE board had conducted centralised counselling in September for the engineering institutes.
But vacancy cropped up as counselling for admission to the NITs through JEE-main started and those enrolled with CU opted for the NITs, said an university official.
The notice on the decentralised counselling says, “vacancy may increase at the table of counselling”.
A CU official said that the counselling for admission to the MBBS courses through NEET — National Entrance cum Eligibility Test — has yet to begin and if that starts around the time CU will conduct counselling, then there are as much chances that the vacancy figure will shoot up.
The subject-wise vacancy list uploaded by the university shows as many as 21 seats are vacant in the discipline of jute and fiber technology followed by 5 in electrical engineering.
“With the Joint Seat Allocation Authority conducting its counselling, a large number of students who had opted for CU backed out and took admission in NITs, like NIT Suratkal, NIT Trichy. This has led to a situation where almost one in the 5 seats has remained vacant at CU,’’ said the official.
A teacher said the lure of better infrastructure, coupled with placement possibilities, is driving the students away.
Those intending to take part in the decentralised counselling have to apply between November 29 and December 2.
Details of the application process have been uploaded on the university’s website.
Another CU official said if Jadavpur University holds counselling on its own later to fill its own vacancies, CU might have to conduct counselling a second time.
A JU teacher said a meeting of the admission committee has been held about holding decentralised counselling, but no dates have been decided as yet.
An engineering aspirant intending to take part in the decentralised counselling for admission to a BTech seat under CU has to be domiciled in Bengal, the notice says.