KOLKATA: With three days to go before undergraduate applications stop on August 5, colleges and universities have received a “satisfactory number” of forms for reserved-category seats. The applications had been good in humanities and commerce but not too high for science, a professor said.
According to the rule, 45% seats at colleges and universities are reserved for students belonging to SC, ST, OBC A and OBC B categories. The cut-off for these categories are usually slightly lower than that for general category seats. But the last few years, filling up these reserved-category seats has been a concern area as at the end of the admission process, several reserved berths at various institutes were found to be vacant, By the time some of the institutes managed to dereserve the seats and open them up for general category candidates, the admission deadline got over, leading to those berths remaining vacant for the rest of the academic session.
At Presidency University, there are 301 seats in the reserved category. “Applications in the reserved category have been satisfactory,” said an official at the university.
Echoing him, an official at Maulana Azad College, too, said applications for reserved category at their institute have been good. “In some subjects, the number of applications received is more than double that of seats,” he said.
In other colleges, like Goenka College of Commerce and Business Administration, Bethune, Lady Brabourne, Asutosh, and Scottish Church, too, the applications have been high. “Forty five percent of the total number of seats in a college is a high number. In the past few years, we struggled to fill the seats as even the number of applications were fewer than that the seats in many courses. By the time, we get them de-reserved, the deadline for admission is over,” said the principal of a north Kolkata college. 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.
New Alipore College has received 4,050 applications in reserved category. “Forms for commerce and humanities in reserved category is adequate though the number is less for science,” said an official of the college.
