West Bengal: After last year’s vacancy, colleges track quota seats

KOLKATA: University and college authorities are closely tracking undergraduate admission applications for reserve category seats as a large percentage of them remained vacant last year, despite multiple lists and notifications.
In 2015, the state government had directed each higher education institute to set aside 45% of its seats for students belonging to various categories, including Scheduled Caste, Schedules Tribe and OBC. According to the order dated April 21, 2015, 22% seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste students, 6% for Scheduled Tribe, 10% for OBA and 7% for OBC. Seats in the general category were increased accordingly.
But the past couple of years saw colleges and universities, including the most sought-after ones, struggling to fill quota seats. But at the same time, many meritorious students could not get berth in their preferred subjects in desired colleges because they did not belong to the categories. By the time these seats were de-reserved and thrown to all, most meritorious students had taken admission elsewhere as the first semester had already started.
This year, many colleges have decided not to wait but to fill as many seats as possible by issuing multiple notifications and applying for desreservation after exhausting all options. “Several reserved seats remained vacant last year. We issued multiple notifications and extended the admission deadline but to no avail,” said Somnath Mukhopadhyay, secretary of the Calcutta University chapter of All Bengal Principals’ Council and principal of Dinabandhu Andrews College. “In case seats are not filled, we can apply for de-reseravtion.”
The West Bengal State Higher Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2013, has a clause that allows de-reservation of seats with the consent of the backward classes welfare department. It can only be done if seats in the reserved categories do not fill even after the admission deadline. “But sometimes, consent from the department arrives when all meritorious students have taken admission in other colleges and the first semester has started. Admitting new students is not possible after that,” said the principal of a south Kolkata college.
An official of the department said the seats are dereserved after going through the process followed by the respective colleges.