CHENNAI: After two rounds of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission (TNEA) counselling, so far 21,532 students have got admissions, out of the 30,926 candidates called for counselling. According to the figures provided by the TNEA, as on July 18 (the final list of allotment for second round counselling was made on Thursday), in government colleges in the state 2,398 seats have been allotted out of the 3,820 total seats available.
Similarly, in government-aided colleges, 2,016 seats have been allotted against total 2,163 available seats. In Anna University’s departments and constituent colleges, 8,840 seats were available but after two rounds, only 3,578 seats have been filled up. While in self -financing colleges (private engineering colleges), 13,379 seats have been filled up against the total available 1,51,574 seats.
The academics have claimed that like previous years, this year too the colleges in the state will struggle to fill in their seats. “Engineering courses have lost sheen due to lack of adequate employment facility and improper infrastructure and with each passing year things are just turning from bad to worse,” said a retired faculty of Anna University. However, Anna University authorities have claimed that vacant seats do not indicate that demand for the courses is declining.
“The seats in Anna University departments like CEG and MIT are filled up. The vacancy is mainly in our constituent colleges located across the state,” said an official of Anna University.TNEA secretary T Purushothaman has said that two more rounds of counselling are yet to take place and so, it is too early to comment on the vacancy of seats.