The state president of the SFI, Sudip Sengupta, today alleged that private engineering colleges fill the vacant seats from their management quota when students fail to appear during the counselling session.

9- central selection committee of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) should ensure that counselling should be held again for the seats left vacant during its first phase, the SFI demanded.

“Ten per cent of the seats are reserved for management quota and another ten per cent for students from All India Examination like AIEEE. Of the remaining 80 per cent seats, the private engineering college fill them from their management quota that are left vacant after students fail to attend the counselling,” Sengupta alleged at the Second Engineering and Technology Students Convention held at the Salt Lake campus of West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT).

He also said that the proposed ten per cent full free-ship and five percent half free-ship are not being followed by private engineering colleges and the government should ensure that the colleges adhere to the rules. There are 56 engineering colleges in the state where 75,000 students study. In spite of making several attempts the SFI has failed to garner support for it in these colleges.

“ We want the democratic rights of having a students’ union in all the private colleges,” Sengupta said, and pointed to the absence of students’ representative in the highest decision making body of the WBUT, in contrast to the Jadavpur University and the Calcutta University where the students’ representative are part of the highest decision making body.