Jadavpur University has uploaded a withdrawal form on its website for all students who have enrolled for its BTech course to know how many of them will pull out, said a JU official.
The university will refund the admission fee of Rs 5,000 if a student conveys his or her decision to withdraw by filling in the form by a deadline, which will be announced later. JU has put up the form to avoid last-minute withdrawals, which leave the university with no time to fill the vacancies.
JU has 1,253 BTech seats.
The dean of engineering at JU, Bhaskar Gupta, said the withdrawal form had been uploaded on the university’s website on Tuesday night.
“This will help the university know the number of vacant seats for which we have to organise a round of independent counselling,” Gupta said.
The dean had late last month written to the higher education department seeking permission to hold independent counselling to fill the BTech seats that remained vacant after the centralised counselling, conducted by the state JEE board, ended.
Last year, too, JU had uploaded a withdrawal form on its website. It had held independent counselling for 437 BTech seats in 2021. A notice signed by the JU registrar, Snehamanju Basu, says: “Students who are willing to withdraw their names from the concerned departments may submit their application in the prescribed format…. The complete application…. may be sent by email to ugenggwithdrawal2022@ jadavpuruniversity.in from the email ID registered at the JEE board or in-person to the muster roll section, JU”.
Fifty-eight seats remained vacant after the centralised counselling ended on September 30. Since then the vacancy count has been rising almost daily as students who got enrolled at JU are opting for IITs and NITs, said a JU official.
A member of JU’s engineering faculty said they were expecting the number of vacant seats to cross 250.
Gupta said that after the centralised counselling ended, some students informed the university about their decision to withdraw.
This newspaper had on Friday last week met a student on the JU campus who wanted to get his enrolment in the department of computer science and engineering cancelled as he had been offered a slot in the electrical engineering department of IIT Kharagpur.
The rising vacancy at JU, where the cost of studying is much less compared with other institutes, has left many teachers baffled.
“The monthly tuition fee for an engineering student at JU is Rs 200. The monthly hostel fee is Rs 25. Institutes like the IITs and NITs, where students are shifting from JU, charge a much higher fees. Better infrastructure and better placement possibilities at the IITs and the NITs are drawing students away from institutes like JU,” a teacher said.