Calcutta University will hold a second independent counselling this month, two months after the first counselling, to fill vacant BTech seats.

The university held its first independent counselling in late September as many seats remained vacant after the centralised counselling conducted by the state JEE board
was over.

But an exodus of students is on. Now, 47 of the 414 seats are vacant.

A notice signed by Amit Roy, the secretary of the University College of Science, Technology and Agriculture, says: “Online applications are invited from WB state-domiciled eligible candidates for admission in the 1st Year of 4-year BTech course against vacant seats in different streams/branches of Engineering and Technology of the University Of Calcutta through decentralised counselling 2024.”

The university introduced an 80 per cent domicile quota in the general category seats in its four-year BTech courses in the 2024-25 academic session.

Until last year, the engineering seats for general category students in the state-funded CU were open to students from all states.

However, the lure of domicile — which means only those state JEE rank holders who have either been residing in the state continuously for at least 10 years as of December 31, 2023, or whose parents are permanent residents of the state with a permanent
address will be admitted — failed to prevent the exodus of students.

Seats are vacant even in coveted streams like computer science and engineering and electronics and communication engineering.

The university’s vacancy list says 21 of the 60 seats in jute and fibre technology, four out of the 40 seats in computer science and engineering, and three out of the 40 seats in electronics and communication engineering are vacant.

Seats are also vacant in electrical engineering, instrumentation engineering, chemical engineering and polymer science and technology.

“When we contacted the absentee students, we learned that 47 had enrolled in other institutions,” said Roy.

This year, all the engineering seats in CU are covered by four-year BTech programmes as the three-year course has been scrapped.

Until last year, the four-year programme had 253 seats and the rest were part of the three-year courses.

A CU BTech student is required to pay ₹5,472 in the first semester, which includes a monthly tuition fee of ₹500 and a monthly laboratory fee of ₹100.

From the second to the eighth semester, a student has to pay ₹3,622 each semester.