Chance for students caught in counsel chaos - Engineering entrance board extends schedule by three days for those who missed out on Monday

Engineering aspirants left stranded in the counselling queue at Salt Lake stadium on Monday after thousands turned up to claim the tuition-fee waiver scheme will be given another chance next week.

The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board on Tuesday decided to extend the period of counselling for admission to engineering courses by three days to accommodate sessions for general-category candidates eligible for the fee-waiver scheme. These sessions are slated for July 19-21.

According to the revised schedule, counselling of general-category students who aren’t eligible for the tuition-fee waiver scheme will begin on July 22 instead of July 19. Counselling of candidates who have cracked the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (not under the fee-waiver scheme) will take place on July 16, 17 and 18.

Counselling was originally supposed to end on August 2, but will now continue till August 5.

Almost 20,000 candidates had turned up at Salt Lake stadium on Monday to claim the benefit of the fee-waiver scheme, triggering a scramble that the authorities were completely unprepared for.

The incident has prompted the government to consider bringing about changes in the board and overhauling its system of counselling. “The system will be reviewed once this year’s counselling process is complete,” Satish Tiwary, the principal secretary of higher education, said.

A source said the government had demanded an explanation for the mismanagement that marred Monday’s counselling. A probe is being considered, he added.

The tuition-fee waiver has been introduced in accordance with the All India Council for Technical Education’s directive to reserve five per cent of the engineering seats for students eligible for the scheme.

In Bengal, around 1,500 of the 30,000-odd engineering seats will be for these candidates. The reservation slabs for this block of seats are 22 per cent for Scheduled Castes, 6 per cent for Scheduled Tribes, 3 per cent for the physically challenged and the remaining 69 per cent for general candidates.

Barely 3,500 students had registered online for Monday’s counselling, according to a board official.

Many candidates did not bring the necessary documents to support their eligibility for the fee waiver, which added to the chaos. “They were supposed to produce their guardians’ income certificates approved by an officer of the rank of block development officer and above. Some students got these income certificates attested by the sabhadhipatis of zilla parishads and councillors,” the official said.

Of the 11,000 candidates who were screened, 250 were cleared for admission under the scheme.