Three state varsities — the IK Gujral Punjab Technical University (IKG PTU), Kapurthala, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, and the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University, Bathinda — received only 5,000 applications for around 50,000 seats of technical and management courses through the centralised online admissions.
The second and last round of the online counselling for admissions to the three universities and their constituent colleges concluded at PTU recently. Of the 50,000 seats, 36,000-37,000 are of engineering courses while the rest are of management courses.
Only 1,746 students applied through the online counselling for engineering seats.
A senior official said there are two reasons behind a lukewarm response to the centralised counselling.
“First, the students, especially those from Punjab, prefer moving to foreign countries after completing their school education. Second, some firms and agents are luring students for direct admission to the colleges and private universities by offering them discounts in the first-semester fees. These firms have offices in other states like Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar wherein they convince the students to go for direct admission,” he claimed.
The colleges are authorised to directly admit students in their courses as per merit.
{{/usCountry}}The colleges are authorised to directly admit students in their courses as per merit.
{{/usCountry}}Another official said only those students who want to apply for scholarships and other government schemes for the students apply through the centralised counselling.
The officials said Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar, hold their separate counselling and there is no cap on the number of seats in private universities in the state.
In 2018, around 12,000 applications were received through the centralised counselling and the figure was nearly same in the previous year as well.
The IKG PTU is paying ₹42 lakh to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for providing technical support for holding online counseling, it is learnt.