Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Despite four rounds of counselling including two online and two college level, more than 45 per cent seats are still lying vacant in MBA courses offered by b-schools in the city.
The information came to fore a day after the Supreme Court extended the cut-off date and deadline for the last date of admission to technical, management, and other professional courses to October 20.
A closer look at the admission data revealed that the total intake capacity of nearly 50 MBA colleges in the city is around 14,400.
Directorate of Technical Education (DHE) had permitted four rounds of counselling for admission to MBA and other technical courses in the state.
Two rounds were for centralised online admission counselling and another two rounds were college level counselling. The same format for admission was for engineering and other technical courses.
Even though Indore, which is the educational hub of the state, remains the most preferred destination for MBA aspirants, close to 7,900 out of 14,400 seats could be filled in b-schools here in the four rounds of counselling. In other words, nearly 6,500 seats remained vacant in b-schools.
“The situation in b-schools in other cities was even worse,” said Arihant College chief executive director Kavita Kasliwal Kothari.
The technical institutions had demanded additional round of counselling but their demand was rejected. To this, they approached the Association of Technical and Professional Institutes (ATPI), which moved Supreme Court seeking an extension of the last date for admissions.
Despite DTE counselling, the ATPI argued in the court, several thousand seats remained vacant, and some colleges couldn't admit up to 20 per cent of their seats in AICTE-approved institutions in the state.
The ATPI approached the Supreme Court pleading that the whole counselling process in the state was inordinately delayed, owing to which a large number of students left for other States and thus the seats were not having any takers.
The ATPI further pleaded that the counselling for admission to NITs and IITs based on the JEE-mains merit list also continued till August 31, owing to which the students were involved in the said counselling process and did not take much interest in the State counselling process of Madhya Pradesh.
The ATPI argued in the apex court that if seats in such large numbers go vacant, then it is not only the institution's loss but also a national loss.
After hearing all parties in the matter, the Supreme Court has extended the date to October 20 as the last chance.
The colleges are now eagerly waiting for DTE to announce an additional round of counselling for admission as per the court’s directives.
