The government started a central admission website called Gujarat Common Admission Services (GCAS) last year to make it easier for students to apply for college courses. But now, the portal is facing criticism again because of poor management.
While the government was praised for initiating the process early and making programmatic and administrative changes to simplify it, this year, no information has been made public about seat allotments or admissions in UG courses.
This has sparked speculation that thousands of seats remain vacant or that irregularities have occurred, and thus the government is avoiding disclosing the data. Moreover, universities reportedly lack accountable officials to address these issues.
The centralised admission process through the GCAS portal is currently ongoing for UG and PG courses across 15 state universities including Gujarat University, Gujarat Technological University, and other universities in Kutch, Saurashtra, Bhavnagar, south Gujarat, north Gujarat.
After many problems last year, the government changed the process this year. Now, after students register through the central system, the responsibility for giving out seats was given to individual universities and colleges.
Colleges had to make merit lists based on cut-off marks and give admission to students according to their choices and marks, using the GCAS portal. Students were supposed to get offers from different courses and colleges.
According to the UG admission schedule, students were to see their first-round online admission offers today. However, reports suggest many colleges did not even prepare the merit lists.
There have also been complaints that subjects within Arts and Commerce streams in some colleges have been changed without notice, as per reports. Additionally, even though the official date was May 29, offers from some colleges allegedly started appearing two days earlier, confusing students due to a lack of clarity on the legitimacy of those offers.
Earlier, the government was proud of the GCAS system. But now, it has not shared even basic details like how many seats were given and how many are still empty.
Reports say that out of around 4 lakh undergraduate (UG) seats, thousands are still vacant. This might be why the data is being kept secret.
At Gujarat University alone, there are over 64,000 UG seats in Arts, Commerce, Science, and integrated courses. Out of these, only 58,000 have been filled, and more than 6,000 seats are still empty.