‘Some reserved seats remain vacant in CU for PG courses’

Days after Post Graduation (PG) courses classes started at Calcutta University (CU) and its affiliated colleges, a certain percentage of reserved seats still remain vacant. The university is trying to fill the vacant seats by initiating a special drive.

“Applicants of such categories, willing to take admission in a course under CU departments or in any of the respective CU affiliated colleges, are hereby instructed to report in person to the office of the secretary, UCAC of the respective campuses (Asutosh Siksha Prangan, the College Street campus and Kshudiram Siksha Prangan, the Alipore campus) or contact to the CU affiliated college of one’s choice,” the notice by CU stated.

The university has issued a notice stating that “few seats” in Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes A and Other Backward Classes B categories in University departments and colleges affiliated to the university are still lying vacant.

PG admission under this special drive is subjected to fulfilment of the eligibility and selection criteria. The special drive is for applicants who could not take admission due to any reasons, including candidates who could not upload the required documents for verification or could not submit their admission fees or missed the admission schedule. The candidates need to report in-person between 12 pm to 3 pm between November 4 and 16.

According to Surendranath College which has a PG course in Computer Science, out of 20 seats, eight remain vacant. Out of the total number of vacant seats, five are for reserved categories and three unreserved. “Twelve students have taken admission till now,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the principal of Lady Brabourne College Dr Siuli Sarkar informed that in almost all PG subjects offered by the college, there remain vacancies for the reserved category. She said that the vacancies have been submitted with the university. Students who want to take admission in the college have been approaching the administration, who have directed them to speak with the University expressing their interest to study in the college.

According to a senior university official, the vacancies remaining in the reserved category seats have been a trend for the past few years. Even if there are candidates from the reserved category, most often the students are lacking the requisite qualification for admission.

Basanti Devi College offers PG courses for two subjects — English and Political Science.

In Political Science, after two rounds of counselling, only four students have taken admission out of 15 allotted seats of which, two are from unreserved category and two from Scheduled Caste, while no one has applied from ST, OBC-A and OBC-B categories.

In the case of English, there are 40 allotted seats, of which 16 have been admitted and 24 seats remain vacant.

“The demand for Political Science has gone down significantly. After the centralised admission process, the responsibility of the admissions for vacant seats will be given to us and we will have to give out a call for counseling. Eventually, the seats will be filled up,” principal of Basanti Devi College Indrila Guha said.

The classes for PG courses started from October 31.