Calcutta, Sept. 6: Calcutta University today approved an increase of over 1,500 seats in around 30 undergraduate colleges in Calcutta and its adjoining districts.

The decision, taken at a meeting of CU’s syndicate body, will be effective from the current 2005-06 session. The move followed an examination of the proposals of various colleges, which said the demand for undergraduate seats ? especially in conventional subjects like English, physics and accountancy ? was picking up.

Students till recently were more attracted to engineering courses rather than B.A., B.Sc or B.Com. The other subjects on their favourites list were emerging ones such as microbiology, biotechnology, molecular biology, computer science, business administration and journalism. But the tide seems to have turned now.

“We were happy to see the colleges asking for more seats in the conventional subjects. We decided to grant the permission to enhance seats to all the colleges which have the required infrastructure,” Suranjan Das, the pro-vice chancellor, academic affairs, said.

The courses given more seats include history, geography, philosophy, Bengali, English, physics, accountancy, political science, mathematics and chemistry.

While in some colleges that have all these departments in place, more students will be admitted, in others the courses are being introduced.

For instance, Acharya Jagadishchandra Bose College in South 24-Parganas did not offer a B.Sc honours course in physics till last year. Forty seats have now been introduced.

In Calcutta’s Shri Shikshayatan College, the number of seats in B.Com general was raised from 70 to 150, while for the B.Com honours course, the seats went up to 375 from 325. In Maharani Kashishwari College, B.Com seats took a giant leap ? from 30 to 100.

“The increase in commerce seats is significant because we had been noticing a declining tendency among students to study the B.Com course during the past few years,” a member of the university’s syndicate body said.

The permission for extending student intake in existing departments and introducing new subjects was given on the basis of the reports of an inspection team of the university.

After getting proposals from the colleges, the team visited the institutions to see whether they had sufficient infrastructure like classrooms, libraries, teaching staff and laboratories.

The university has, however, has laid down certain conditions which the colleges must meet within three years.