Why are over 300 seats at Anna University vacant this year?

In this academic year, almost 302 seats in the four campus colleges of Anna University are vacant, out of the total of 2440 seats. However, the silver lining is that the number of seats lying vacant this year is almost half as compared to last year. Last year, as many as 632 seats, almost 25% of total seats, were vacant, thereby, triggering concern among the higher education department officials. 

In order to deal with the problem of wastage of seats in the premier engineering university, which mainly arises as many students quit their engineering seats to join medical colleges, the state government took some timely action this year and it seems the efforts have yielded desired results. The engineering counselling was postponed this year due to the delay in NEET results (the entrance exam for MBBS and BDS courses) and the higher education department had also introduced a new rule this year that within seven days of allotment of engineering seat, the student has to pay the fees and join college. And varsity officials said these measures helped in the reduction of vacant seats in Anna University campus colleges. 

The Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission (TNEA) counselling was originally scheduled to start on August 25, however, it began on September 10, two days after the publication of NEET results. The engineering counselling concluded on November 13. As per the data available from the university, last year, 424 students did not join Anna University campuses after selecting seats for engineering, while 208 discontinued after getting MBBS seats. While this year, 198 students did not join after paying fees and 114 quit their seats after getting admission into medical colleges. "As compared to last year, the vacancy figures have come down by almost 50% this year and it is a big improvement. But we are still working to find out more ways through which we can manage to reduce the figure further," Vice-Chancellor R Velraj said. He further highlighted that to avoid vacancies, the higher education department has introduced lateral entry counselling this year for the very first time. "Through this lateral entry counselling, diploma students are allowed to join second year of BTech courses," said Velraj. 

The data reveals that out of the four campuses of Anna University, the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG) has the highest number of vacancies. At least 139 seats are lying vacant in CEG, while in ACT, MIT and SAP, as many as 101, 55 and 7 seats are lying vacant, respectively.