Pune: The Maharashtra State Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell on Monday issued a statement withdrawing its decision to increase the seat acceptance fee for engineering admissions under the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) for the 2026–27 academic year, following objections from student organisations, parents and candidates, as well as directions from the state government.
With the rollback, the seat acceptance fee will remain ₹1,000, as in previous years.
Earlier, this month, the CET Cell had proposed a revised fee structure under which candidates would have paid ₹1,000 for accepting a seat in the first allotment, ₹2,000 for accepting an upgraded seat after the first betterment round, and ₹3,000 for accepting another upgraded seat in a subsequent betterment round.
The proposal drew widespread criticism from students, parents and education organisations, who argued that the additional financial burden would discourage candidates from participating in betterment rounds and unfairly increase admission costs. Several organisations submitted memoranda to the CET Cell demanding that the revised fee structure be withdrawn.
The CET Cell said the revised fee structure had been proposed because the seat acceptance fee had remained unchanged for the past seven to eight years. It added that the move was intended to discourage candidates from blocking seats unnecessarily. According to the cell, nearly 35,000 engineering seats were blocked during last year’s admission process.