Jadavpur University has asked engineering aspirants to apply between December 22 and 26 to fill the 487 BTech seats that have remained vacant after the centralised counselling by the JEE board.

According to a notification issued on Friday, all general category candidates who have qualified JEE 2020 with a valid general merit rank of 10,000 or less and reserved category candidates having qualified JEE 2020 with any valid general merit rank and not admitted to any undergraduate degree programme under faculty of engineering and technology, Jadavpur University, may apply.

The university has 1,253 seats and close to 40 per cent seats have not found takers during the three rounds of online counselling by the board that had started in August and ended in late October.

The students already admitted to any BTech programme in JU may also apply only if they desire to change the programme they are admitted to.

When the state government in early December had allowed engineering colleges to select students for admission on their own, the vacancy stood at 450 at JU. By the time JU issued the notification for decentralised counselling, the figure rose to 487.

In computer science and engineering, considered to be the most coveted stream attracting the top-notch students from the state JEE, over 50 seats have remained vacant.

In electronics and telecommunication engineering close to 50 seats have remained vacant while in information technology its 36.

Where are the enrolled students heading to?

An official of the engineering and technology faculty at JU said even as the university had been filling seats in the first three rounds of centralised counselling, enrolled students started backing out after counselling for the NITs began in mid-October.

“With the Joint Seat Allocation Authority starting its counseling, a large number of students who had opted for JU backed out and took admission in NITs, like NIT Suratkal, NIT Trichy. This led to a situation where more one in the three seats has remained vacant at JU,’’ said the official.

Amitava Datta, the new dean of engineering and technology said: “After the admission process gets over, we will engage our quality assurance cell to find out why so many seats remained vacant’’.

The problem of seats remaining vacant is not only restricted to JU.

In Calcutta University as many as 89 out of 237 BTech seats have remained vacant, prompting the university to start decentralised counselling.

Metro had reported on Monday that the association of private engineering colleges in Bengal has appealed to the state government for permission to admit students during the decentralised counselling who did not write any common entrance exam, a move that the association said has been prompted by a staggering number of vacant seats.