More than 20,000 seats in Mumbai junior colleges lie vacant

More than 20,000 seats are still vacant in junior colleges after the chaotic admission season. With close to 2.3 lakh students from the city applying for admissions post standard X from across boards, there were apprehensions about the demand being more than the supply.

According to figures provided by the deputy director’s office, around 1.4 lakh students have taken admissions online and more than 1.2 lakh students have taken admissions in the minority, in-house and management quota seats.

Even as 10,000 students have sought admissions under the allowed to keep term (ATKT) scheme offered by the state government, 20,000 are vacant.

“Most of these vacant seats are in the newly set-up colleges, which are not in demand among students. Since most of the seats in established colleges are taken by students who pass the examination, students who are seeking admissions under the ATKT scheme are left with no option but to seek admissions in these colleges,” said an official from the deputy director’s office.

He added, “All the new colleges, which have been set up recently have only unaided seats, where the tuition fees are high. For admission in a science college in an unaided division, the students have to pay almost three times the fees. Most students prefer to avoid them. However, since the ATKT admissions began in the end, after the online process, these students were forced to take admissions in unaided sections.”