99,735 seats up for grabs for students

With the court hearing due after a week, we have to either settle for a college which is not of our choice or risk waiting till the end of CAP for seats to open up. MAMTA JAIN, parent

MUMBAI: The third merit list for the First Year Junior Colleges (FYJC) will be declared today on the state education department’s website at 11am. Students will vie for 99,735 seats across city colleges in round three of the admissions. Students can confirm admissions to the colleges allotted to them between July 31 and August 2.

Despite the availability of over 99,000 seats, there is a growing concern among FYJC aspirants and their parents as 58,283 vacant quota seats in the minority colleges are still not a part of the Centralised Admission Process (CAP). Prominent minority colleges like St Xavier’s, Jai Hind, KC and HR are left with a handful of seats for general category students and would thus remain more or less out of bounds in the third round of admission, even as a chunk of their minority quota seats lie vacant.

With the education department yet to announce how these vacant seats would be allotted, parents said they would find it difficult to decide whether or not one should secure a seat in the college allotted in the third round.

On July 12, the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court asked the state to permit colleges to fill quota seats till the end of the CAP rounds. Quota seats allotted for general category students were given back to colleges.