The biggest disadvantage in the admission Top Engineering Colleges in India in the present academic session is that somewhere around 3200 seats were lying vacant when the admission process came to an end. As in the newly introduced JoSAA there was not available exit option, many students are stuck with seats they don't want to join and another lot comprise of the students who want to sign up at these colleges but cannot do so. The government was very much benefitted by this because for each of these 3,200 seats a non-refundable seat acceptance fee of Rs 45,000 was paid with the government making a neat Rs 14.4 crore
In the business rules prescribed by Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) for admission to the IITs, NITs, IIIT and other government-funded technical institutes, it did not permit students to cancel admissions. As a consequence of the faulty design the candidates who were not happy gave up the allotted spots, it even restricted the interested students, sitting a bit lower in the merit list, to opt for these colleges. The parents complained that after the first two rounds very few changes took place, hence, merit list did not roll as seats were not allowed to be withdrawn.
Even established colleges like NIT Trichy have unfilled seats. A candidate admitted to the computer science stream at IIIT-Guwahati, who no longer wants to join it said, “Many of us have demanded JoSAA can refund our money and allot the seat to another student who wants admission.”
NIT Patna director Asok De, also co-chairman of the JoSAA said, “At the end of the process, there are 3,200 seats where students have blocked the seats but have not confirmed their admission.” In the present academic session total 87 institutes were part of the Joint Admission Counselling. For the first tie in the history of India it happened that top-notch Engineering colleges came together to allot seat and courses to the students. The Joint Admission Counselling process was divided into four Rounds.
Director of an Indian Institute of Information Technology said, “This isn't a reserved seats problem. The tragedy is there are students allocated seats but they don't want to join is. And there are many waiting to join, but they have not been allotted seats.”
