Engineering seats vacant for years

Chennai: Even after the available seats for engineering counselling coming down by 8,000 this year, the number of surplus seats increased to more than 60,000, higher by 10,000 over last year’s position.

The total number of seats available for engineering counselling is 1,92,009, including surrendered management quota seats in private engineering colleges.
The total number of eligible applicants this year is 1,31,182.

Last year, the number of applicants called for the counselling was 1.54 lakh whereas the available seats were more than 2 lakh seats. Totally, 14 colleges are out of the counselling ambit due to the progressive closure this year.

“The number of applications was down by 20,000 this year. This is  one of the main reasons for the increase in surplus seats this year,” an official from the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee said.

Anna University trimmed intake of 18 private engineering colleges as they lacked facilities and faculty after conducting inspections this year. Many colleges have applied to All India Council for Technical Education asking to reduce their sanctioned seats as they are lying vacant for last few years. “Since the number of students applying for engineering counselling is low, the general counselling also ends a few days earlier than usual on July 21,” the official said.