Exclusion of nearly 175 engineering colleges from the counselling list will drastically lessen the options for the students, particularly in the sought-after branches like the Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) and Computer Science Engineering (CSE).
Even among the 141 colleges that made it to the counselling list the number of seats have been reduced significantly with the maximum seats being 180 in each stream. Sources said majority colleges were asked to reduce the seats to 180 or forego affiliation for the year. Some colleges that were permitted to fill 360 seats had to forego 50 per cent of them in popular streams like ECE and CSE. “It’s a loss not just to the students but also to the managements financially,” an official agreed.
Plans of students to choose seats in popular branches will go haywire due to the seat reduction. “We have to redesign our plan of choosing the courses from the available colleges. Last year’s seat matrix will not work this time as nearly one lakh seats have gone from the list,” says Spandana Reddy, an aspirant.
Rural students will face tough time as majority colleges that failed to make it to the counselling list are from the surrounding districts. It was easy for them to get into their choice of course earlier but now they have to pick up from the leftover seats from the not-so-popular branches like Electronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE) or Information Technology (IT). Moreover, they will lose an opportunity to study near Hyderabad and simultaneously take up other skill-based courses privately.
Officials are still unable to give the exact number of seats available in all the 141 permitted colleges in the Telangana area given the reduction in seats. “Though we uploaded the colleges list we are still calculating the number of seats available in each stream,” said an official. In the past, officials had the figures of not just the colleges but also the number of seats in each stream a day before the counselling session.
