82% UG, 94% PG engineering seats under EWS quota vacant in Maharashtra

The introduction of new reserved categories — the 10% economically weaker section (EWS) and 13% socially and economically backward class (SEBC) — especially in professional

The introduction of new reserved categories — the 10% economically weaker section (EWS) and 13% socially and economically backward class (SEBC) — especially in professional courses, was heavily debated this year.

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The government, however, went ahead and implemented the new quotas.

Post-admission figures revealed that seat vacancy under the EWS quota in undergraduate engineering (UG) courses (BE/BTech) in government and private institutes across the state stood at 82% as only 1,877 seats out of the 10,249 seats found takers. Similarly, the overall seat vacancy under the EWS quota in post-graduate (PG) courses (ME/MTech) stood at 94%, as only 69 students were admitted out of the 1,160 seats.

Many have blamed the rise in seat vacancies under the EWS quota to the overall seat vacancies in engineering admissions.

This year, seat vacancy in UG engineering courses across the state increased to 48% from 43%, while for PG courses, it rose to 65% from 54.5%.

“Attraction to engineering courses has been on a decline for some years now. However, this year, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) implemented a ban on new institutes while several others had shut down in the state. Keeping this in mind, the overall seat vacancy should have reduced compared to last year,” said a spokesperson of a Satara-based engineering institute.

He added that high vacancy under EWS quota has single-handedly raised the overall seat vacancy in engineering courses in the state this year.

For the past few years, engineering institutes have been grappling with a bigger problem of declining demand for seats leading to higher vacancy.

In December 2018, a specially-constituted committee by AICTE, which included educationists as well as industry experts suggested a blanket ban on new institutes starting 2020, and instead asked the existing institutes to better their performance.

In Maharashtra alone, 26 institutes were not allowed to conduct admissions in 2018-19 owing to lack of infrastructure or appropriate faculty.

The focus, felt many educators, should have been on ensuring that students possessed the appropriate documents before applying for admission, instead of simply implementing the quota.

“Most students who applied for admissions in the EWS quota were not aware of rules and regulations. They didn’t know that even under the quota, they will have to pay 50% of the fees and many students couldn’t afford that,” said Gopakumaram Thampi, principal, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Bandra.

He added that this led to much chaos in engineering colleges during admissions and eventually, amidst confusion, many students did not take admission under the quota, leading to high seat vacancy.

Some institutes in the city found it easier to fill seats under the EWS quota in UG admissions but the response in PG engineering courses remained abysmal.“We don’t seem to have a lot of vacancy in the EWS quota in undergraduate admissions but the PG admissions have been hit very badly. We are yet to figure out what exactly is the reason for such poor response from applicants for PG courses,” said Shubha Pandit, principal of KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, Vidyavihar.