CU, JU urge govt to scrap decentralised e-counselling

Kolkata: Vice-chancellors of two state-run universities — Jadavpur University (JU) and Calcutta University (CU) — have urged the state govt to scrap the WBJEE online decentralised counselling and allow the universities to conduct the traditional offline decentralised counselling to fill up the large number of vacant seats.CU has over 140 seats vacant after two phases of online decentralised counselling, nearly 30% of its total BTech seats. JU has over 230 BTech seats vacant, which is around 19% of the total number. There are 478 engineering seats at CU and 1,190 BTech seats at JU. Additionally, there are hundreds of seats vacant in govt engineering colleges across the state.This is the first time that West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board is conducting online decentralised counselling in a centralised way. Earlier, decentralised counselling for BTech courses against vacancies used to be conducted by the respective institutions based on WBJEE ranks.JU VC Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said, “I have written to the higher education department to allow us to conduct offline decentralised counselling immediately to fill the vacant seats based on ranks. It is causing a loss for the state and affecting the reputation of the university. We have over 230 vacancies, but we have decided to start our first-year engineering classes from Sept 28.”CU VC Asutosh Ghosh said, “We are concerned about the vacant seats across engineering courses as classes have started. We have asked the state govt whether decentralised counseling could be conducted offline, as in previous years, to fill these seats. We will write to the state govt soon.”In the last few years, 150-180 seats remained vacant at JU after the centralised counselling, which the university filled during decentralised counselling. The situation was similar for CU, where 20-30 seats remained vacant after centralised counselling and was filled up during decentralised counselling by the university.A higher education department official said, “No decision has been made yet on subsequent phases of decentralised counselling. The phase 2 online decentralised counselling ends on Friday. Once we get the seat matrix of vacant seats, we will decide on the next course of action. The whole process is being conducted in a fair and transparent way to ensure there is no merit violation.”VC of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) Tapas Chakraborty said, “First-year classes should start early so that the teaching-learning process is not hampered.”Engineering professors at both JU and CU feel that without offline decentralised counselling, the vacant seats will not be completely filled.You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Kolkata | Silver Rate in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata | Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Petrol Price in Kolkata | Diesel Price in Kolkata | CNG Price in Kolkata | LPG Price in KolkataStay updated with the latest Kolkata news. Download the TOI App.