Engineering admission: 64,0001 BE seats vacant in state after first CAP round

The first round of the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) first year admissions has started for 1,35,190 seats in the state which will be filled up through the online centralised admission process (CAP). A total of 89,079 students have applied for the engineering courses and confirmed by filling up the optional form.

In the first CAP round, a total of 71,189 students were allocated seats in 341 engineering colleges in the state and 64,001 seats remain vacant after the round 1.

Last year, out of the 1.25 lakh seats in the state, at least 60,000 went vacant. This year, the total number of seats in the state has increased with the introduction of 10,252 seats for the ‘Economically Weaker Section’ quota.

This year, however, students are not taking admissions immediately in the first round, as they have not been allotted the college or stream of their choice and want to wait for the next two rounds. 

Prof BB Ahuja, director of College of Engineering Pune (COEP), said, “Students are interested in BE courses as they have gone through the tough entrance exams, but may be choosy about their branch and the institute which they have to go to. Ultimately every student at the end of four years is looking for probable employment and engagement with the industry. So, the students are selecting those specific courses and institutes where they feel they will get an appropriate and well paid job. Hence, the wait for the next two rounds to take admissions. In the second and third round, there is a merging of various categories to fill up the seats and then, the picture will be more clear.” 

Abhay Wagh, state director of department of technical education, said, “I need to confirm the exact figures about the admission process and only then would I be able to comment on the issue. As compared to last year, we are getting good response from students and we hope that all the engineering seats would be filled up this year.”

Diploma in engg: Better response this year, but almost half of the seats to go vacant

Applications for diploma seats for various polytechnic courses in the state have increased by 3,591 this year with the Maharashtra state board of technical education (MSBTE) receiving 65,921 applications as compared to 62,330 in 2018-19.

However, these are far less than the overall number of seats, which stand at 1,14,655. This means that around half the number of seats will go vacant this year as well, even though efforts were made to bring increase the intake and improve the number of applications

Out of the total seats available (1,14,655) for the online centralised admission process (CAP), in the first round 43,574 seats were allotted to students and 71,081 seats are still vacant which will be filled in the subsequent rounds to be held for admissions.

“There has been a good response from students to the diploma courses this year and we also started the admission procedure earlier this year on April 28. Till last year, we started the process after the SSC results were declared, but as we had conducted a drive to create awareness and increase the number of diploma admissions, we are seeing good results in the admission process. Till now the first round has been declared and its admission process going on. There are more rounds to go and we hope that 100 per cent admission is done this year,” said Dr Vinod Mohitkar, director of MSBTE.

“Our officials have put in efforts this year to increase the number of applications and students confirming the admission. In a bid to get 100 per cent admissions filled for the engineering diploma courses in all the polytechnic colleges in the state, MSBTE held a ‘Live online broadcast counselling session’ on June 12 across the state in the polytechnic colleges. In this session, senior officials from MSBTE, experts from various industries and successful people from the industry guided students about career opportunities after the diploma. We have also instructed all the polytechnic colleges to form special counselling cells to introduce students to the various opportunities available after course completion to boost the declining interest of students in technical education,” added Mohitkar.

Last year out of the total available seats – 1,16,000 in the state, only 50 per cent of them were filled and in 2017, the percentage was 65 per cent. While the total number of available seats has reduced this year to 1,14,655, but till now the number of applications received is high.

Surendra Giram, principal of AISSMS College of Polytechnic, Pune, said, “As the MSBTE is introducing a new pattern of having six months of industrial internship compulsory for all the students, it will make students ‘job ready’ once they complete the diploma. There is a lot of scope after the student complete the diploma in any stream and there is a demand of engineering diploma students in the market which get well paid by the industries.”