Some north Calcutta colleges that used to see snaking admission queues are struggling to fill their seats this year with a switch in affiliation to the fledgling West Bengal State University apparently keeping meritorious students away.

Dum Dum Motijheel College, one of north Calcutta’s much sought-after institutions when it was under Calcutta University (CU), has had a lone student take admission so far to study economics honours. Bidhannagar Government College received 1,400 applications for English honours, but hasn’t been able to fill 35 seats.

“As many as 39 of our 40 economics seats are vacant this year. And to think that we had been turning away students all these years,” said Dipak Chakraborty, the principal of Motijheel College.

“Who could have thought that seats would be vacant in all 15 of our honours courses after the first round of admissions? As a Calcutta University affiliate, our college was the first choice of many bright students,” said teacher Ajoy Maity, part of the team managing admissions at Bidhannagar Government College this year.

Both colleges switched affiliation to West Bengal State University, Barasat, in 2008 along with 57 other institutions of North 24-Parganas. The transfer was forced rather than voluntary, the erstwhile Left Front government’s argument being that Calcutta University needed to be unburdened.

“The change did not impact admission trends in the first couple of years, but this season has been shocking. Students would rather study in a lesser-known college and get a degree from Calcutta University than take admission in a good institution and get a certificate from West Bengal State University,” a teacher said.

The new university allegedly lacks the infrastructure to conduct examinations properly.

For the suffering colleges, the unkindest cut is having to settle for students they would have rejected in previous years. At Dum Dum Motijheel College, a 70 per cent score in the Class XII board exams wouldn’t guarantee a seat in physics honours until a couple of years ago. The cut-off this year is less than 65 per cent.

Bidhannagar Government College has been forced to announce a second round of admissions on July 25 to fill the vacant seats, according to a teacher.

Most heads of colleges blame the error-ridden 2009 Part-I exams conducted by the new university for students becoming wary of studying in colleges affiliated to it. The results that year were marred by mistakes, forcing the authorities to withdraw them within two hours of their announcement.