Many seats have remained vacant in government and government-aided colleges after the institutes conducted independent counselling to fill the seats that were yet to be taken after the centralised counselling conducted by the education department ended.

At Lady Brabourne College, 250 out of 750 seats are vacant.

At Asutosh College 1,600 out of 3,300 seats are yet to be filled.

At Surendranth College 1,300 out of 3,100 seats have remained vacant.

The department asked colleges to start independent counselling from September 7 as a little over 4 lakh out of 9 lakh seats remained empty after the centralised counselling that had started on June 24, more than one-and-a-half months after the publication of the Plus-II results.

The heads of several colleges blamed the delayed start of the centralised counselling for the vacant seats.

Several college principals said as the autonomous and minority colleges, which the department earlier said would be out of the purview of the centralised portal, almost completed their admission process before the portal was rolled out.

They said, a section of undergraduate aspirants enrolled wherever they got a chance after the Plus-II results.

“Much before the launch of the centralised portal, minority colleges started receiving applications. Once a candidate takes admission into a college, it is unlikely that he or she will cancel the admission and enrol elsewhere afresh. The early start of classes matters a lot for any student,” said a principal.

“Ever since the launch of the four-year undergraduate programme from the 2023-24 academic year following the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the undergraduate syllabus has become more exhaustive and students always look forward to enrolling in institutions where classes start early” said Manas Kabi, the principal of Asutosh College.

Some other principals said they would want the department to launch the portal immediately after the publication of Plus-II results and start the admission process in autonomous and minority colleges simultaneously.

Till last year, Bengal’s colleges admitted students on their own through stand-alone portals after the publication of Plus-II results.

The state government launched the centralised portal to curb the intervention of students’ unions in the admission process.

Another reason behind the launch of the centralised portal was to ensure that fewer seats remained vacant.

However, principals said the delayed start of the portal came in the way of achieving the target.

“We would want the state government to open the portal once the results of the Plus-II board examinations are out. The delayed start of the portal is not advisable. The autonomous and minority institutions were going ahead with their admission when
the government and aided colleges did not even started receiving applications,” said Seuli Sarkar, the principalof the Lady Brabourne College.

Metro reported on June 14 that many colleges expressed their concerns about the
“inordinate delay” in the launch of the centralised portal and wondered whether the undergraduate aspirants would wait that long to take admissions in the government and aided colleges.

Many then said the undergraduate aspirants would enroll in autonomous or minority institutions or private colleges or universities because the government-aided colleges were yet to start the admission process.

“What we apprehended has come true. Besides, there is a need to rationalise the volume of undergraduate seats,” said the principal of Asutosh College.

Statistics show that five lakh students enroll in undergraduate courses in colleges. Therefore, there was a need to rationalise the seats if the count of vacant seats had to be reduced, he said.

Earlier this month, sducation minister Bratya Basu had said that the department will reassess the number of undergraduate seats offered by government and aided colleges and re-evaluate the actual demand among aspirants.

Indranil Kar, the principal of Suredranath College and also the secretary of the All Bengal Principals’ Council, Calcutta chapter, said their forum wrote to the education minister on May 20 requesting him to start the portal early because they feared a delay could lead to many wasted seats.

“We hope the portal will be launched early next year drawing lessons from this year,” he said.