From Our Correspondent
CALCUTTA : On September 2 the West Bengal government issued a circular exempting Jadavpur University (JU) and Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) from the government order that wants institutions to lower their merit to fill their vacant engineering seats.

“JU and BESU will be exempted from filling their vacant seats,” said Satish Tiwary, Principal Secretary Higher Education. “The circulars will soon be sent to the two universities.”

The exemption, however, has been granted only for the current year, the official added.

The decision was welcomed by the two universities. “We are thankful to the government for allowing us to keep our seats vacant,” said BESU vice-chancellor Ajoy Kumar Ray. “We welcome the move as we are looking forward to working together with the government to achieve excellence.”

P.N. Ghosh, the JU vice-chancellor, hailed the government’s move. “We are happy that the government has considered our appeal,” he said.

On September 5, at a meeting with the deans and registrars of the two institutions, the government had indicated that it might issue such an order.

This year, there are 57 engineering seats vacant at JU and 28 at BESU.

The government had earlier asked all private and state-aided engineering colleges to fill the vacancies by offering a chance to those students who had cleared the WBJEE but did not attend counselling. In case seats still remained vacant, they were to give a chance to those who had cleared the All India Engineering Entrance Examination but not attended counselling.

If both these options were exhausted and seats still remained vacant, students who had passed their Plus II board exams with a minimum of 45 per cent marks had to be admitted. The order had caused resentment at JU and Besu, with the authorities feeling that their academic standards would fall if they admitted students of low merit.