As many as 23,001 or 36% of government and government-aided engineering seats have been left vacant after the third round of counselling by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA). Of the total 64,484 seats available, 48,027 were selected by students for the 2022-2023 academic year. However, only 41,483 students downloaded admission orders.
These seats include government, government quota seats in private colleges as well as seats surrendered by private colleges. According to data made available by the KEA, this is the highest number of vacant seats in engineering colleges over the past five years.
After completion of two rounds of counselling, the State Government sought permission from the Supreme Court to extend the last date for engineering admissions and conducted a second extended round of counselling till December 31, 2021 to fill the seats.
Numbers likely to go up
Sources in KEA said that the number of vacant engineering seats would further increase after the counselling process for medical and dental seats was completed. “Students who have obtained high ranks in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and obtain medical or dental seats will give up their engineering seats,” the source said. A majority of the seats remaining are in civil and mechanical engineering branches.
A principal of a private engineering college said that for several years now, a large number of engineering seats in government colleges were going vacant and termed it the “problem of plenty”.
This year as many as 1.83 lakh students were eligible to join engineering courses. Despite the demand being close to three times the number of seats available, there is no demand to join many colleges as they have poor teaching resources or inadequate infrastructure.
‘High fees is a deterrent’
However, student organisations pointed out that many candidates were forced to give up on their dreams to pursue professional courses as the fees for engineering seats were increased this year. Shruthi K., an engineering seat aspirant said that she was unable to afford it as her family’s finances were affected due to the pandemic.
