JOIN US This separate counselling round was held after the end of the regular seat selection process, and it was open to all eligible CET rank holders.
However, this year the KEA is still awaiting such an order from the government. With the admission round counselling almost coming to an end, there is a now a sense of urgency so that B E seats don’t go unfilled again.
“To ensure that engineering seats are available for eligible candidates, the Government permitted the KEA to conduct the counselling for the vacant seats. Last year we were able to fill up many vacant seats, which were surrendered on the last day of the casual vacancy round,” a KEA official said.
As many as 1,642 engineering seats remained vacant after the casual vacancy round. On the conclusion of the separate counselling round thrown open to all eligible rank holders, 782 engineering seats were filled. But 860 engineering seats remained vacant in 2008 and this was due to the lack of information from the KEA to the eligible CET rank holders, he pointed out.
Following approval of six colleges by the AICTE, 1,240 seats have been added to the present engineering seat matrix. “Four engineering colleges are in the pipeline which have already been approved by the AICTE but the Higher Education Department has not sent the seat matrix to KEA yet” said the official.
The inclusion of the newly approved colleges in the seat matrix indicates the increase of the engineering seats from 34,000 as of last year to 37,000 seats this year. The increase leads to excess seats at hand with no students to opt for the courses.
Institutes to be informed
A few years back, students who appeared for many competitive examinations selected seats at government institutions and also at central institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs). This led to the blocking of seats at engineering institutions in the State, eventually denying seats to meritorious and eligible candidates.
To put an end to this practice, the KEA has decided to write to the IITs and NITs about candidates who have already selected the seats in these institutions, as well as the engineering colleges in Karnataka. “We will write to the IITs and regional engineering colleges concerned on the students who have selected seats in government institutions. Last year several students blocked many engineering seats at the CET counselling process and failed to join the respective colleges. Hence we wrote to the engineering institutions and were able to retrieve many seats for the benefit of deserving candidates” the official added.