Admission forms sell like hot cakes

PUNE, June 10: The admission process to first year BA, B Com and B Sc and professional degree courses like engineering commenced today with ...

PUNE, June 10: The admission process to first year BA, B Com and B Sc and professional degree courses like engineering commenced today with the brisk sale of application forms at various colleges. While principals worried over the dwindling number of students for its science streams, the College of Engineering Pune COEP had to even confiscate 22 forms from such individuals who tried to misuse the facility.

The COEP, which saw a huge rush in the morning, will sell and accept forms until June 19, after which the university area merit list will be displayed on June 22. According to the timetable for FY Engineering admissions -1998-99, the last day for receiving complaints regarding the merit list at all admission centres is June 23.

In order to make it convenient for students to quickly purchase the forms, the COEP decided to distribute two forms per person at the counters opened at the Main Civil Drawing Hall without verifying their HSC marksheets.

However, the facility was misused by a Khadki-based contractor who deputed his assistants to stand in the queue several times and collected 22 forms. On realising this, the COEP authorities confiscated the forms.

Principal B M Domkundwar told this paper that people from far-off places flocked to the COEP centre and to ensure that they didn8217;t have to wait for hours in the queues, a decision was taken to distribute two forms per person.There are a total of 25,759 engineering seats in 103 colleges in Maharashtra under Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Mumbai University, North Maharashtra University, Pune University, Shivaji University, SNDT University for Women, Nagpur University and Amravati University. There are 5,530 seats under the Pune University region at 18 colleges.

According to Domkundwar, 30 per cent seats from all aided institutions and government colleges and 85 percent seats of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University will be available on merit basis to all students from Maharashtra from this year. The Allocation list with the state-level merit list will be displayed on June 27 after which the first round of admission will begin on June 30. The vacancy data will be displayed after July 17 while classes will begin on July 19. The last date of admission for payment seats by the institutes is August 13.

Meanwhile, the University of Pune has directed its affiliated colleges to complete the admission process by the end of the month and submit the vacancies in each college to the University cell. Fergusson College principal V K Wagh said that forms will be distributed from June 10 till 13 after which students from Fergusson8217;s junior college will be given preference and admitted between June 15 and 20. Admission for non-Fergussonians will be held between June 24 and 27.

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Principals are keeping their fingers crossed regarding the filling up of science stream seats. While technically seats to the science and arts streams will be filled, over the years we have seen that science students drop out in great numbers after having obtained admission to engineering or medical faculties, says Wagh. In fact there is a huge rush for arts and commerce streams. According to Modern College principal A G Gosavi, the university has directed colleges to give preference to its own junior college students while following the reservation and merit policy. We have only two divisions for the Commerce stream and it is likely that the number of seats will be less to fill up the surging number of applications, he rued. Application forms to the Common Entrance Examination for admission to the first year MBBS/BDS course will be available from Thursday at the B J Medical College.