Over 10,000 engineering seats under PTU still lying vacant

This year,there were 28,105 seats in BTech,including 8,393 in the management quota (33 per cent),which were to be filled by the college management without any counselling. Therefore,PTU conducted counselling for remaining 19,712 seats,including 16,755 (85 per cent) for Punjab on the basis of CET,and 2,957 (15 per cent) for other states on the basis of the AIEEE exam. There were 8,880 seats for the general category and 7,876 seats in the reserved category in the state quota.

It may be noted that in 2008 and 2009 too,over 6,000 seats had remained vacant in PTU colleges.

Sources said there are over 40 colleges under PTU where over 100 seats in each college are still lying vacant in different engineering branches.

PTU sources said there are a large number of colleges that should be closed due to poor infrastructure and under-qualified faculty. Students do not prefer to go these colleges,which has resulted in large number of vacancies every year.

“Many students have migrated to our college in the second year from engineering colleges like Surya School of Engineering and Technology,Rajpura,where the infrastructure is in a very poor state. These colleges can mislead students and their parents initially,but once the students join the college,they see the real picture. They claim that when they are paying exorbitant fees,there is no reason for them to compromise with the quality of education,” said a counselling co-ordinator at Chandigarh Engineering College,Landran.

Another session of counselling on the basis of AIEEE would be conducted next week even though counselling for 85 per cent state quota has already been completed. Still 10,229 seats are lying vacant.

Sources also revealed that students prefer to take admission under the management quota as they can then get admission in the college of their own choice.

Parents also complained about the decreasing value of the entrance examination process. This year,for 28,105 seats,only 28,906 students appeared in the entrance test. Also,for 19,712 counselling seats,only 17,201 students got themselves registered.

PTU Vice-Chancellor Dr Rajneesh Arora said: “Most of the vacant seats are under the reserved categories,which would be converted into general category. Also,we would be going to different states to fill seats under the non-Punjab quota.”