Open letter to JoSAA demanding ‘seat surrender option and fee refund’

Careers360 has already reported possibility of many seats at IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs going vacant this year, despite joint counselling being organized under JoSAA for admissions to the premier engineering institutes in India.

The counselling team of Careers360 has received thousands of calls where JEE Advanced/JEE Main candidates have raised their concerns on ‘non-availability of seat surrender option’. Such an option will definitely help stop wastage of Engineering seats in IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs.

Now, Careers360 writes an open letter to JoSAA officials seeking urgent introduction of following options under Joint Counselling process:

• Option for seat withdrawal facility till the last round of counselling ends

• Fee Refund norm in case a seat is finally withdrawn after acceptance

• Chance to participate in next rounds for candidates who didn’t participate in earlier rounds

• A spot round for all those candidates who either wish to withdraw their current allotment or didn’t participate in the earlier round

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

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Open Letter to JoSAA

To,

Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA)

Dear Sir/Madam,

First of all, I thank you, on behalf of thousands of engineering aspirants, for introducing Joint Counselling for IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs under Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA).

I write to draw your attention towards a major lacuna in the Joint Counselling process which may lead many seats at IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs going vacant this year as well.

You would agree that one of the major reasons for introducing JoSAA was to minimize the number of seat going vacant in IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs owing to the separate counselling processes earlier.

JoSAA came with lots of hope towards significant reduction in the number of unfilled seats at IITs, NITs, IIITs and other GFTIs. But, unfortunately, the Joint Counselling for admissions to IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs under 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.

A seat once blocked will remain blocked and would not be allotted to other candidates despite the original claimant wishing to withdraw admission.

Also, there is no process for fee refund if a candidate accepts a seat but finally wishes to withdraw the same before the last round of counselling ends. 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 seat acceptance fee and reports at the allotted institute, 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.

Ultimately, the concerned institute will find out about the vacant seats only when the candidates will not register or report for classes as per the prescribed schedule. Thus, there is a good possibility of seats being vacant this year also.

Further, once a candidate accepts the seat just to participate in the next rounds but finally wishes 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.

In past years, if a candidate would inform the concerned authority regarding his/her decision to withdraw the accepted seat, 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).

Also unlike previous year, there is no provision for any spot round for those candidates who could not participate in the earlier rounds.

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/she 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 unlike current scheme where he/she is automatically ousted from JoSAA after turning down an allotted seat at any stage.

Given the above counselling challenges under JoSAA, I submit that the unavailability of the surrender option for the candidates goes against the spirit and original thought process of JoSAA.

Though JoSAA restricts candidates to block seats separately at NITs and IITs, an absence of ‘seat withdrawal or surrender’ option raises serious concern towards your effort to minimize the number of seats remaining vacant at NITs, IIITs and GFTIs every year. Therefore, I request you to intervene into these issues at the earliest to save wastage of precious engineering seats at national institutes which are funded by taxpayers’ money.

In the larger interest of thousands of JoSAA participants, I also request you to announce as soon as possible the following:

• Option for seat withdrawal facility till the last round of counselling ends

• Fee Refund norm in case a seat is finally withdrawn after acceptance

• Chance to participate in next rounds for candidates who didn’t participate in earlier rounds

• A spot round for all those candidates who either wish to withdraw their current allotment or didn’t participate in the earlier rounds

I look forward to an early consideration on issues listed above.

Sincerely,

Ashish Jha

Web Editor, Careers360

Copy to:

Smt Smriti Zubin Irani, Honb'le Minister of HRD

Dr Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay

Dr Asok De, Director, NIT Patna

Mr Vinay Sheel Oberoi, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of HRD