Tamil Nadu: Top engineering colleges to have 25 per cent vacancies

Chennai: The confusion over Neet (National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam) and delay in medical admissions can leave up to 25% seats vacant this year in top engineering colleges including the College of Engineering, Guindy.

Following union minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s announcement that the Centre is willing to support Tamil Nadu’s ordinance on Neet exemption, it is almost certain that this year’s admission to state quota MBBS seats will be based on Plus-2 marks.

Though it has brought an end to the confusion and uncertainty in MBBS admissions, the announcement left the top engineering colleges staring at huge vacancies as the engineering admissions have finished before the medical admissions this year.

For College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), this year the cutoff mark is 198. In the open category, the cutoff is 199 marks. 

“We expect huge vacancies this year at CEG. Top ranking students have joined mainly in CSE, ECE and Mechanical departments. So, the vacant seats in these departments will be more compared to other departments,” sources said. Last year, 130 seats were vacant after the second and third phase of medical counselling. 

“The top four colleges, namely CEG, SSN engineering college, PSG College of Technology, Government College of Technology will have more vacancies,” sources added. This year 2,594 MBBS seats are available in government medical colleges for state quota. In private medical colleges, 783 seats are reserved for state quota. And 1,190 BDS seats also available under this quota. It is expected that these four colleges alone can have up to 25% seats vacant due to the medical admissions which are based on Plus-2 marks. 

Roughly, the top four colleges alone may have up to 1,000 to 1,500 students who are eligible for medical admissions. Other courses like B.VSc and AH, B.Sc (Agriculture) may  also witness vacancy after medical counselling.

“There may be some candidates eligible for medical also. We will conduct a second phase counselling after the MBBS counselling. So, we can fill up these vacant seats,” S. Thilagar, Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University.

“Since veterinary science and agriculture courses have only few hundred seats, it’s possible for them to fill the vacant seats. For engineering, Anna University has to call all those one lakh students again to fill the vacant seats. So, it is not possible to conduct the second phase counselling for vacant engineering seats,” officials said.

To avoid such situations, Anna University plans to go completely online for engineering counselling for next year.

MBBS seats available for state quota
There are 3,377 MBBS seats available under state quota. In government medical colleges (including Raja Muthaiah Medical College) 2,594 seats are available and in private medical colleges, 783 seats are reserved under this quota.