‘We are losing students’, says JU VC as university sets 12,000 JEE cut-off to fill 182 vacant BTech seats

Jadavpur University (JU) has set a cut-off rank of 12,000 in the state Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for general-category candidates to fill 182 vacant BTech seats through its own counselling, the Telegraph reported. 

The university commenced its own JEE counselling from October 27 and will continue until October 30 to fill the vacant engineering seats, the report said.

The move comes as 182 BTech seats remained vacant after several rounds of counselling held by the JEE board, the report read. Of the total remaining seats, 33 are in the civil engineering department, and 11 in the electrical branch, it added.

To fill the remaining vacant seats, JU has invited general-category candidates with up to 12,000 rank in the JEE, it said.

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Jadavpur University counselling for BTech admissions 

Chiranjib Bhattacharjee, vice-chancellor of JU, said in the report that the university was calling candidates with lower rank in the JEE merit list to fill vacant seats. 

Delayed admissions could make it difficult for the students to cope with the syllabus, the VC said in the report.

“If you hold delayed counselling, you are bound to get students from lower down the rank. This is not a healthy sign for an institute. BTech classes at JU began on October 12 this year, much later than at the IITs and NITs. I know a candidate who took admission to Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Odisha because of the delayed counselling at JU. At KIIT, they have by now completed the mid-term,” Bhattacharjee said in the report.

The university was losing students because of delayed admissions and to fill the vacant seats with lower ranked candidates was not good for the institute, he added.

On October 13, the state government permitted JU and Calcutta University to conduct its own counselling to fill BTech seats left vacant after the centralised process, the report said.