JOIN USStudents applying for engineering seats under the National Cadet Corps (NCC) quota are a beleaguered lot as the number of seats have been drastically reduced from around 330 last year to 130 this year.
Students, who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity, revealed that they had been running from pillar to post seeking an answer from the higher education department as to why the seats were reduced even though the number of applicants had increased compared to the previous year.
Students say the reduction in the number of seats without considering the list of applicants was due to a communication gap between the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) and the higher education department.
Speaking to Deccan Herald over telephone, principal secretary for higher education Siddaiah said the decision to reduce the seats under NCC quota was taken after
considering the number of applicants availing seats over the last three years.
However, students counter the argument stating that awareness about NCC quota was lacking during the previous years.
Instead of increasing or decreasing seats based on the number of eligible applicants, the higher education department has ignored students under NCC quota, they complain.
Also, a few said the seats awarded under NCC quota were to courses, which they could have bagged under general merit itself.
Citing an example, they said a particular college offers BE in polymer science, which is not popular. In fact, it would be available for a very low ranking.
So what is the use of giving it under NCC quota, they question.
Meanwhile, principal secretary Siddaiah said it wouldn’t be possible to add seats under NCC quota during the second round.
He said he would look into the issue and see if it would be possible to increase the number of seats during the supplementary round.