Loophole in JoSAA 2015: Many seats at IITs, NITs, IIITs may go unfilled

Joint Counselling for admissions to IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs under Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) may worsen the number of unfilled seats at the premier Engineering colleges as the new process does not allow candidates to withdraw admissions despite they dump JoSAA for better opportunities elsewhere.

Joint Counselling is being conducted for the first time by Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) 2015 for nearly 34,000 seats across 18 IITs, 31 NITs, 18 IIITs and 18 GFTIs. Under current scheme, there is no provision of surrendering a seat in case a candidate gets a better opportunity outside JoSAA. A seat once blocked will remain blocked and would not be allotted to other candidates despite the original claimant wishing to withdraw admission.

Thus, once a candidate accepts a seat allocated to him under JoSAA 2015, he is under no circumstances allowed to surrender the seat despite finally taking admission at any other institution. Such candidate are also bound to lose seat acceptance fee which is Rs 45,000 for GEN, OBC-NCL and Foreign nationals, and Rs.20,000 for other reserved categories.

This effectively means that after a candidate deposit Rs 45000 and accept the seat under JoSAA, the seat will be booked in its name and will go vacant in the academic year 2015-16 in case the candidates goes for admission elsewhere.

The JoSAA brochure reads, “There is no option to withdraw from seat allocation or to surrender an allocated seat other than by rejecting the seat.” Also, if a candidate rejects the allocated seat, it automatically gets out of any further admission rounds under JoSAA.

Why seats are blocked in IITs, NITs, IIITs, GFTIs despite candidates wishing to back out? Join Careers360 campaign for ‘seat surrender’ option in JoSAA

How exactly seats may go unfilled?

Careers360 presents how the absence of ‘seat withdrawal or surrender’ scheme under JoSAA will result in unfilled seats at IITs, NITs IIITs and GFTIs. We explain below the process and the loophole:

As per JoSAA business rules, candidates, who do reject the allotted seats are automatically out of the seat allocation process. It clearly mentions “Candidates, who reject allocated seat, cannot participate any more in Joint Seat Allocation for the ensuing academic year 2015-16.”

Thus there is no option to participate in next rounds without accepting the seat. But once a candidate accepts the seat to participate in the next rounds but finally wish to withdraw, he/she has no option but to lose the seat acceptance fee. Also, there is no mechanism to notify this to JoSAA authority so that they can allot the seat to next candidate in queue.

We present here, different cases and the expected outcome in different scenarios below:

Thus, there is a good possibility of seats being vacant this year. Read below to know how:

Imagine you have paid the seat acceptance fee, but you get an offer from a better institute (other than JoSAA participating institutes) the next day. If you want to take admission in that better institute, you obviously like to communicate this to JoSAA so that your seat can be allotted to other candidates. But unfortunately, there is not any formal way to do so. Thus, your seat will remain booked in your accepted institute for the current academic session and remain unfilled if you don’t report for the classes.

Ultimately, the concerned institute will find out about the vacant seat only when you do not register or report for classes as per the prescribed schedule.

In the past, if you would inform the concerned authority regarding your decision to withdraw, then that allotted seat was made available to others in the subsequent round. Moreover, the seat allocation conducting authority used to provide complete refund (counselling fee chargeable).

Is JoSAA addressing the ‘vacant seat’ issue?

Till 2014, hundreds of seats would go vacant due to separate counselling and seat allocation procedures at IITs and NITs. It was one of the major reasons for introducing the joint counselling process and it was expected that there will be a significant reduction in the number of unfilled seats at IITs, NITs, IIITs and other GFTIs.

Careers360 had also run a campaign for Joint Counselling process for IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTI in April 2015.

Though Joint Counselling process under JoSAA restricts candidates to block seats separately at NITs and IITs, an absence of ‘seat withdrawal or surrender’ facility raises serious concern towards effort to minimize the number of seats remaining vacant at NITs, IIITs and GFTIs every year.

Dheeraj Sanghi, who has been the Dean of Academic Affairs at IIT Kanpur and an expert of JEE counselling, also opines, “Don't count on joint counseling solving the problem of vacant seats. In fact, this may worsen the problem.”

How it was better earlier?

Earlier, IITs and NITs would facilitate candidates in withdrawing admission and, in fact, NIT would also offer a spot round opportunity for such candidates. For instance, if we take the case of NIT admissions, for which the seat allocation procedure was conducted by CSAB, the candidates were given the option to withdraw at any stage, after being provisionally admitted to an institute and such candidates were considered for seat allocation in spot round.

But this year, there is no spot round. Therefore, if a student withdraws, he will be out of the seat allocation procedure and cannot participate again.

Candidates were also given the option of surrendering their seat if not satisfied. In such cases, the candidates had the option of surrendering their presently allotted seats during reporting and remain under consideration for next round of seat allotment.

In current scheme, there is no option to withdraw an accepted seat. Moreover, seat acceptance fee, once paid, is not refundable except when the candidate does not report in person at a reporting center.

Also Read:

JoSAA 2015 Latest Updates

New IITs Vs Old IITs- Which should I Prefer?

JEE Main 2015 Topper Interview: How Tanuj Kaza bagged AIR 2

Stay tuned to engineering.careers360 for more news and updates on JoSAA 2015.