Fast track admission option in state engineering colleges

Mou Chakraborty,
Kolkata, May 21, 2007
From this year, a limited number of candidates who have the money to spare can get direct admission to private engineering colleges in the state, in their choice of subject. Provided they have appeared in the list of successful candidates.
The state government from this year has allowed private engineering colleges a 10 per cent management and NRI quota, to fill up seats. But, in return, the government has asked the 62 private colleges to offer 10 per cent seats free and 5 per cent seats at half the standard fees to needy students.
The management and NRI quota students will not have to appear for counselling and can approach colleges directly. But, while management quota students have to be among the 45,000 rank-holders in this years’ WBJEE, students seeking admission through the NRI quota need not even appear for the WBJEE. “We cannot expect a student coming from Australia or the US to have taken WBJEE. They can take direct admission if they are other wise eligible. The state will follow the Supreme Court guideline regarding fees and admission procedures through management/NRI quota,” said Sudarsan Roychoudhuri, state higher education minister.
“In the past, colleges have illegally admitted some students even after counselling got over. By offering them the quota, we have given them a chance to do it legally. But, we will set up a monitoring cell to check whether they are indeed offering seats to poor students,” said Roychoudhuri.
The Central Selection Committee, that conducts counselling for engineering aspirants, however, has not received any government order regarding implementation. The committee will counsel 80 per cent students from WBJEE and 10 per cent students from AIEEE to fill up 17,000 seats in private and government engineering colleges in the state.
Last year, the government had to publish a merit list of upto 80,000 rank-holders to fill up vacant seats in the private engineering colleges. This year, counselling for engineering will be preceded by medical and IITJEE counselling, to reduce dropout rates.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com