CHENNAI: As many as 994 students, who participated in the first round of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) counselling, have been re-allotted seats in the second round of the online counseling process this year which ended on Thursday.
The number of students from the first round seeking re-allotment in the second round, has more than doubled this year, compared to the figure last year. Only 475 students from the first round had opted for re-allotment in the second round last year.
Among these 994 students, at least 166 had scored more than 190 cut-off marks out of the total 200. Moreover, five colleges were removed from the counselling process in the second round since Anna University cancelled their affiliations.
“It is really worrying to see that the toppers, who can easily get a seat in any college and course of their choice, had to seek re-allotment of seats in round two. This indicates that the students made a wrong choice due to lack of awareness or misguidance and were unhappy with their choice in round one,” said career counsellor Jayprakash Gandhi who had been following the TNEA counselling for over a decade.
He further added the Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE), which conducts the counselling, should consider bringing back the physical mode of counselling as some students are still unable to fill their choices properly during online counselling.
R Ashwin, another career counsellor, said closing down colleges in the middle of the counselling process is not acceptable, since it adds to the confusion of students.
“Due to carelessness of Anna University and DoTE, in these five colleges, over 20 students have taken admission. What will happen to the future of these students? The seat matrix should be clear from the very beginning of the counselling process for the benefit of students,” said Ashwin.
DoTE officials have no role in last-minute cancellation of the affiliation of colleges, they claimed. “Anna University informed us about cancellation of the affiliation of five colleges, so we had to remove them from the list,” said T Purushottaman, TNEA secretary.
Anna University sources said the affiliation was cancelled due to lack of infrastructure in these colleges.
Data reveal out of the total 423 colleges, only 56, of which 27 are self-financing, have managed to fill more than 90% seats. A total of 69 colleges have filled less than 10 seats, thereby making their sustainability and academic quality questionable.
Over 276 engineering colleges in the state have not managed to fill even 50% of their seats after completion of two rounds of counselling. Only one more round of counselling is left.
The total number of engineering seats available for academic counselling this year is 1.72 lakh and the total seats filled after completion of second round is 79,894. So far, only 46.34% of seats have been filled. Over 92,605 seats will be available for the final round of counselling.