Now, the students would be offered 100 alternatives in the form during the first and second rounds, of which they have to take admission in top three colleges if selected in the list. Till last year, the students were offered 20 options and they had to take admission in top nine colleges selected to them.

During the second round, they used to get 35 options of which they had to verify admission in top 15 colleges. For the third round, they used to have 45 options at their disposal and they were supposed to take admission in any one of them if the colleges were allotted alongside their names. Those students who failed to get admission through first three rounds were called for the final counselling round. Now all will change from the forthcoming academic session.

"The remaining ones would be admitted through counselling round which would be the last round," Technical education director Subhash Mahajan said.

Mahajan added that they would try to finish the entire admission process by July so that students do not suffer as their first semester examinations are in November.

InMaharashtralast year, a staggering number of over 79,000 seats remained vacant in all technical faculties that included diploma, degree and postgraduate degree courses coming under DTE. In engineering degree courses, nearly 30% seats remained vacant in the state while in diploma 25% were not filled.

This happened even after AICTE lowered bar for engineering admissions from 50% in class XII examination till last year to 45% (40% for reserved category) aggregate in physics, chemistry and mathematics (PCM) group. Over 2.54 lakh applicants appeared in MHT-CET in last May. Still, a large number of seats remained vacant despite extending dates and lowering eligibility criterion. This year the MHT-CET would be conducted on May 10.

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This has prompted the DTE to take steps to reduce the admission process. The AICTE has also expedited its process of granting new colleges and now they will be announced the names before the admission process commences all over the country.