EWS quota: Seat vacancies persist at pvt engg colleges

Panaji: Ever since seats were added to engineering colleges in the state in 2019 to accommodate the quota for economically weaker sections (EWS), these seats have continued to lead to vacancies every year. For the academic year 2023-24, the last round of admissions ended recently and 250 seats have remained vacant.

Officials said that the vacancies are largely due to the additional seats and do not reflect any diminishing interest in engineering programmes.

“When the seats were added in 2019 to accommodate the EWS quota, Goa had about 1,250 engineering degree programme seats,” an official said. “Today, the seats have gone up to about 1,600. If you analyse the figures, more than 1,250 seats are getting filled. So, the demand is intact. The additional seats are going vacant.”

All seats in Goa Engineering College at Farmagudi continue to be filled but the additional seats at the four private colleges are going vacant.

“The EWS quota only ensures a seat and does not translate into any concession in fees. Since the CM introduced the DJ-Gift scheme and concessions in fees have been given across engineering colleges in Goa, a level-playing field has been created,” the official said. “Students do not get any concession for being part of the EWS quota, but all students below a certain family income limit get fee concessions under the DJ-Gift scheme anyway.”

Though the EWS quota required 10% seats to be added, Goa had to add 25% more seats to be able to accommodate that quota.

“All the reserved category seats in Goa were already coming up to 50% of the seats with 50% seats left for the general quota. Even if a single seat was added to a quota, it would affect the availability of the general category seats,” said the official. “So, to add the 10% EWS quota, another 25% seats had to be added to ensure that all other category seats are equally up. But the reserved seats such as those for SCs, STs, and OBCs, which are now up in numbers, eventually are de-reserved after not being filled up. Then they come to the general category and add to the excess seats.”

Seats under the EWS quota added to other professional programmes such as medicine and dentistry are not going vacant as Goa has only one institute each offering these programmes with limited seats. So, the demand continues to be higher than the supply of seats.

“As the IIT and the NIT also came up in Goa and there are 50% seats reserved for Goan students at NIT Goa, many students are opting for these. Others are choosing local private engineering colleges,” the official said.