Candidates refuse to study in IIT, seats remain vacant

, July 10: Unlike the usual rush to get

in the IITs-considered to be among the premier institutes in the world-the most unthinkable has happened this year. Close to 769 students refused

here on various grounds. Authorities now have to fill these seats with a second round of allotments.

Although a rare scenario, the situation implies that students are more concerned about their subject choices than the institute they study in. While reserved category seats going vacant is a common scenario every year, a second allotment in general seats is unthought of.

The reasons stated by these candidates vary from not getting the stream of their choice to not having enough confidence in the new IITs. "Hundreds of seats are available for students of all categories," said JEE (advanced) chairman H C Gupta. The institutes hence decided to offer these seats to students who have already taken admission into other courses, but had mentioned another course as a preference.

"While there are seats available in every IIT, most vacant seats are at ISM-Dhanbad. IT-BHU (now an IIT), which used to have many unfilled seats, does not have as many vacancies this year. It has improved," Gupta said.

This has been the trend since 2009, where 505 seats were vacant, 2011 saw 300 vacant seats and required a second round of allotment. However, even a few years earlier, the second round of admissions were not done as the unfulfilled seats were assigned to preparatory classes for quota students who could not score the threshold marks to get into the institutes. "This is why, 50 percent of the seats remained vacant in the seats reserved for the SC/ST candidates."

The second round of counselling and admissions begin today. So, there is still hope for the wait-listed candidates!

OneIndia News