New Delhi: Delhi University (DU) received almost 21,000 more applications this year than the last one, on its concluding day of submitting application forms i.e. June 15. The final number of forms submitted in 2009 amounted to 1, 13,471, against 92,758 in 2008. The reason behind such a steep increase in the selling of application form is the 18 percent OBC reservation raised by DU and the unreliability of private universities.
SK Vij, Dean Students’ Welfare, said that this year DU received highest number of applications ever received for undergraduate courses. As per the records, there was an increase in income ceiling for OBC candidates, from Rs 2.5 lakh last year to Rs 4.5 lakh this year. Last year, almost half the seats reserved for the OBC category fell vacant, forcing the government to increase the income ceiling for OBC applicants to Rs 4.5 lakh. Moreover, the recent controversy regarding the status of deemed universities and private universities have also encouraged students to choose DU.
The total number of undergraduate seats available in Delhi University is 49,000. Keeping in mind the number of applications received by the university this year, it means two candidates for each seat. Many aspirants are banking on the 7000 extra undergraduate seats to see them through. It was found that many aspirants queuing up to deposit forms on Monday were wary of a rise in cutoff. However, the Supreme Court directive asking all empty OBC seats to be given to open category students gave them hope.
