The state higher education department notified on Thursday that colleges and universities offering four-year BTech courses can admit students independently because “a reasonable number” of seats do not have any takers after the centralised counselling conducted by the state JEE board.

An official of the department said that out of over 35,000 seats, around 13,000 remained vacant after the three-round online centralised counselling that ended last month.

“A reasonable number of seats in such professional technical courses are vacant. Therefore, it has been decided... by the higher education department to allow all the institutions recognised by the regulatory authorities.... admission of students through decentralised counselling and allotment process,” says the notice signed by a deputy secretary of the department.

As many as 150 seats are vacant at Jadavpur University, which is regarded as a premier institute in engineering in Bengal.

JU has 1,253 BTech seats across 16 disciplines.

Rajib Banerjee, the dean of engineering at JU, said they would hold counselling before the Puja vacation to fill the vacant seats.

A CU official said around 50 out of 414 BTech seats remain vacant.

Amit Roy, the dean of engineering and science faculty at CU, said they will issue notice next week about the counselling schedule to fill the vacant seats.

An official of the department said they had asked the colleges and universities to hold the counselling on their own so the classes for the new entrants could be started as soon as possible.

Anupam Basu, former professor of computer science at IIT Kharagpur and former director of NIT Durgapur, said there was a need to assess why JU University, considered to be the most sought-after engineering institution, is clocking a substantial vacancy over the past few years.

“Many newer NITs have come up and I guess, a section of enrolled students are heading for the NITs in the hope that NITs offer better infrastructure,” said Basu, now the Raja Ramanna Chair Professor at Jadavpur University.

At JU, the annual tuition fee for an engineering student is ₹ 2,400.

NIT Durgapur which admits students through JEE-main charges ₹1.25 lakh.

However, the lure of studying engineering at a much lesser cost could not stop the flight of students from JU.

A JU official said reports about many of the departments are struggling with obsolete computers because the cash-strapped university did not have funds to replace them with new ones, triggering doubts in the minds of students about continuing their studies at the university.

“If an institute struggles with obsolete computers this shakes the confidence of a student and he or she is likely to leave whenever he or she gets a better offer,” the official said.

Basu said one of the reasons for the low enrolment in engineering colleges is that a section of students is averse to pursuing engineering.

“Many of the private engineering colleges are struggling with placements. This is making students wary.”

The placement scenario is poor even in premier institutes.

The Telegraph reported on April 18 that premier tech schools such as the IITs witnessed a dip in placements this year.

According to data compiled by Dheeraj Singh, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur, 40 per cent of the final-year BTech and MTech students, registered for placements in IIT Delhi, did not get offers.

The data also showed that 32 per cent of students of IIT Madras, 33 per cent of IIT Bombay, 30 per cent of IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur did not get offers.