Thiruvananthapuram: Merit quota seats are lying vacant in self-financing engineering colleges in Kerala, contrary to the belief that only management quota with a higher fee has no takers.
As per the available data, 11,448 merit seats remained vacant after the 2014 admissions while the total number of vacant seats was 30,000.
The vacant government seats showed a 360 per cent increase from 2009 when it was just 31. The management quota fee was fixed at Rs 1,25,000 as against Rs 75,000 in the merit quota.
In more than 40 per cent of the State’s 130 engineering colleges, students enrolled were less than one-fourth of their capacity.
In all, 62,000 candidates had qualified for over 56,000 seats filled through the allotment process of Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE).
However, 6,000 of them did not get the minimum mark prescribed for the Plus-Two examinations. Students who got more than 10 marks in the entrance test were eligible for admissions.
The government had earlier decided to allow even students with zero marks and those with negative marks. It has to dropped after widespread criticism.
