Around 350 of the 21,000-odd seats in engineering colleges in the state are lying vacant after the second round of counselling, held over the last weekend.

State joint entrance examination (JEE) board officials are not sure how or when the seats could be filled.

“The 350-odd vacancies can be filled up only if the state government allows us to conduct a third round of counselling,” said Asim Bose, the member-secretary of the JEE board.

Students are blaming the situation on the centralised system of allotment of seats.

The JEE board, which conducts the admission test across the state, had announced a merit list of 45,000 students last month.

As is the practice in the state, the successful candidates have to go through another round of centralised screening — known as counselling — before they are allotted seats.

That the system is not working is apparent — in a state where the demand for engineering berths far exceeds the supply, so many seats are lying vacant even after the second phase of counselling.

“The scene could have been different if individual colleges had the freedom to choose candidates from the merit list,” said Anirban Dey (name changed), whose name figures on the merit list.

Anirban had refused a berth in the first counselling and had no information about the second.

The board had to organise the second counselling as around 2,500 seats could not be filled in the first phase. Many students who were allotted seats in the initial round did not finally join the courses, mainly because of poor infrastructure in private colleges.

“I was offered a seat in electronics and communication in a college on the southern city fringes and I accepted it,” said Sandip Bhattacharya (name changed), who was among the first 15,000 on the merit list.

“After admission, I found the infrastructure in the college was poor and there were not enough teachers. So, I left the course and joined a B.Sc (honours) course in microbiology,” said Bhattacharya.

If a third round of counselling is allowed, the JEE board would have to fill up the 350-odd vacancies with students who had ranked beyond 45,000.

“The colleges will surely not get meritorious students at this stage,” said a teacher in a government engineering college.