Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The rain was coming down heavily when we set out to find why hundreds of Delhi University seats were vacant.
Our first stop was Bhagini Nivedita College in Kair, near Najafgarh, one of the university’s far-flung campuses that falls under the Delhi government’s fully funded umbrella of 12 colleges. The farther we travelled towards Delhi’s western edge, the quieter the roads became; the familiar bustle of central Delhi gave way to stretches of greenery and open spaces.
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By the time we reached the college, the rain had left parts of the road muddy and the campus unusually quiet. But the weather was not what caught our attention. It was the number on the admission sheet.
More than 800 undergraduate seats at Bhagini Nivedita College were still vacant after two rounds of admissions.
The next stop was Satyawati College.
Here, the setting was different. We were no longer at the far western edge of Delhi. Satyawati is much closer to the university’s central ecosystem, and the campus on a rainy Thursday morning was far from deserted.
Students moved through the corridors, an orientation programme was underway and there was the unmistakable activity of a new academic session beginning.
Yet the admission sheet told a similar story.
As many as 546 undergraduate seats were still vacant across Satyawati’s morning and evening shifts after the second round.
Two campuses, two very different settings, but one uncomfortable question – Why are DU seats still lying vacant when thousands of students across the country are desperate to get into the university?
The answer, as we found on the two campuses, is not as simple as poor infrastructure or weak teaching. CUET, reservation policies, and girls who still prefer to choose courses with their parents’ consent all play a role.
At Bhagini Nivedita, the problem appears to be linked to its location too, about 40 kilometres from New Delhi, changing course preferences, and the absence of a wider student ecosystem around the campus.
At Satyawati, the picture is more nuanced. Students clearly want some courses, with programmes such as Political Science and Commerce attracting admissions above their sanctioned strength, while several language and other programmes have large gaps.
Together, the two campuses reveal a larger change in the DU admission landscape.
Students do not simply want a Delhi University seat any more, they want the right Delhi University seat. And that may explain why a university that remains one of India’s most coveted undergraduate destinations can still have hundreds of empty seats.
CAMPUS BUILT FOR LOCAL GIRLS, BUT CHANGING STUDENT PREFERENCE
BNC was established in 1993 to provide higher education to women from the rural and semi-urban parts of Haryana. For years, its location was closely tied to its purpose. It was meant to serve young women from nearby areas who wanted access to a Delhi University education without having to travel deep into the city.
But that local connection no longer automatically translates into student preference.
Last year, the college had 709 vacant seats against a sanctioned strength of 985, according to DU’s vacancy assessment cited by The Times of India. This year, the problem has returned.
As quoted by The Print faculty, members of different colleges confirmed that the “complex” CUET exam process is making it difficult for the seats to get filled.
“Ever since the university administration adopted a centralised admission system based on CUET, the process has been unnecessarily prolonged each year, and seats still remain vacant,” told Rajesh Jha to The Print, a professor at DU’s Rajdhani College.
The latest DU vacant-seat document, dated August 3 at 6 pm avaiable on DU’s official site, shows vacancies spread across almost every major programme at the college. In BA Programme History + Political Science, for instance, 25 UR, 34 OBC-NCL, 19 SC, 10 ST and 13 EWS seats were vacant, along with 6 PwBD seats — more than 100 vacancies across the categories listed.
BA Programme Economics + Political Science had 63 vacant seats across the listed categories, while Computer Applications + Economics had 58.
Even established programmes were affected. BA Honours Hindi had 20 UR, 16 OBC-NCL, 9 SC, 4 ST and 6 EWS vacancies. BA Honours History also had substantial vacancies across categories.
The pattern runs through combinations involving Sanskrit, History, Economics, Political Science, Computer Applications and Music.
For Principal Ruby Mishra, who joined the college 11 months ago, part of the answer lies in changing student aspirations. “New programmes and courses are now being sought after by students, as they are prioritising skill-based education, and the existing structure is finding it difficult to cater to this demand,” she told us.
Mishra pointed out that the college initially received around 600 applications through CSAS for its 985 seats, but after upgrade rounds only around 200 applicants remained.
The college has spent Rs 2 crore on development over the last 11 months, according to Mishra. The focus, she said, has been on improving the student environment, introducing newer programmes and responding to changing expectations.
Yet a visit to the campus makes it clear that this is not simply a story of a college that has been left behind. There is greenery, there are classrooms, laboratories, a library, canteen facilities and spaces for indoor and outdoor activities.
The campus is considerably quieter than the better-known DU hubs, but quiet does not necessarily mean neglected.
The problem is that students are now comparing much more than infrastructure.
“The college was built to serve the local population, our girls from nearby areas, and it did well for years, but in the last few years the trend is not so good,” a senior college official said.
She also alleged that the previous AAP government had mistreated the college and provided no funds.
“Most of the seats in the unreserved category remain filled, while it becomes difficult to find suitable candidates for many reserved-category seats. Even candidates in the EWS category face challenges, as many remain unaware of the renewal process for the quota card,” she added.
She also cited CUET as a major reason behind the decline in student admissions. “Most rural students are unaware of the process, which makes it difficult for us to fill the seats,” she opined.
BA programmes, including the language courses, like BA in Sanskrit, are facing an existential crisis.
The decline of language studies is one of the reasons, the college faculty highlighted, along with a prevailing mindset in which most girls come from lower-middle-class families where parents are still the primary decision-makers.
THE SATYAWATI PARADOX
If BNC shows how geography and changing aspirations can work against a college, Satyawati shows why the vacant-seat crisis cannot be reduced to a single explanation.
The college, established in 1972, is much closer to the university’s central ecosystem. It has more than 4,000 students and over 150 faculty members, according to its website, and is accredited A+ by NAAC in its second cycle. Yet vacancies persist.
When we reached the campus, we saw the corridor was buzzing. An orientation banner welcomed the 2026-27 batch. But the campus also showed signs of ageing.
The area immediately outside the gate had become muddy because of the rain. Inside, several classrooms were almost empty, with only two or three students chatting about the latest ‘Lock Upp’ episodes.
Paint had faded in places, benches and tables looked old, some glass windows were broken, and green boards were not clean.
According to vacancy data accessed by India Today Digital, Satyawati had a sanctioned strength of 1,347 seats for 2026-27. After the second round, 208 seats were vacant in the morning shift and another 338 in the evening shift, taking the total to 546.
Some language programmes were particularly affected. BA Honours Urdu had only three admissions against a sanctioned strength of 58, while BA Honours Sanskrit had 16 admissions against 58 seats. BA Honours Hindi had 22 vacancies, while BA Programme Urdu + History had 16 vacancies against a much smaller sanctioned strength.
NA YAHAN KUCH PADHATE HAIN…
Inside Satyawati, however, student perception offers another piece of the puzzle. Yogita Singh, a second-year English Honours student, described the college as “below average.” Her assessment was blunt: “na yahan kuch padhate hain, na hum padhte hain, college mein padhne kaun aata hai” (neither do teachers teach here, nor do we study; who comes to college to study?
During India Today Digital’s visit, students spoke about sparsely attended classrooms and an academic environment that does not always encourage them to come to college regularly. “Classrooms went empty at times, and it feels like there is no study space. That also makes us a little sad. Attendance is not really an issue here; many of the girls follow that approach,” said Ekanshi, 19, a second-year student at Nivedita college.
The administration, however, disputes the suggestion that teaching is absent. Admission convener Professor Vijay Narayan Singh said the faculty is good but acknowledged the need for more teachers.
The college has around 155 faculty members, he said, but departments require additional teachers.
Principal Professor Subhash Kumar Singh also acknowledged the faculty requirement, particularly after the introduction of the four-year undergraduate structure, which has increased the teaching load.
The college also uses guest faculty appointed through the UGC system.
IS INFRASTRUCTURE THE PROBLEM – OR PERCEPTION?
Satyawati’s administration also rejects the idea that the college has simply been neglected. The college has an old building and a newer one, but both showed maintenance problems during the visit.
Rainwater had entered some classrooms in the newer building, the administration said renovation work is carried out regularly.
The college website lists facilities including a medical room, canteen and parking, and highlights its A+ NAAC accreditation. The administration also pointed to improvements in the library, including air-conditioning and its use as an examination facility. Drinking-water infrastructure has been upgraded through water purifiers installed at different points.
But improvements on paper and improvements visible to students are not always the same thing. According to the principal, around 95 per cent of the college’s funding comes through the UGC, including salary and pension expenditure, while the remaining 5 per cent comes from the Delhi government.
The question, therefore, is not necessarily whether money is being spent, it is whether the money being spent is visible enough, and meaningful enough, to change how a 17- or 18-year-old applicant sees the college while filling out a preference list.
The commute is a major challenge at Bhagini Nivedita College. With no nearby metro station, many students cannot afford the long travel time. For girls, travelling such a distance also raises safety concerns, as this remains a common perception.
However, several measures have been taken to strengthen security and create a better environment, Principal Mishra highlighted.
THE CUET UPGRADE TRAP
There is another common thread connecting Bhagini Nivedita and Satyawati: the admission system itself. Satyawati’s admission convener explained that students often accept a seat in the first round and then leave when they receive an upgrade. That makes the vacancy problem self-perpetuating.
A student who gets Satyawati or Bhagini Nivedita in the first round may not see that seat as the final destination. It can become a temporary stop while the student waits for a preferred college or course.
Then the upgrade arrives, the student leaves, another seat opens, and the process continues.
This is not a problem created exclusively by CUET. But the centralised CSAS preference system has made student choices more sharply hierarchical. Candidates rank colleges and programmes, and allocations follow those preferences alongside merit and seat availability.
The problem has become serious enough for DU to make an unusual intervention this year.
Bhagini Nivedita College and Aditi Mahavidyalaya were allowed for the first time to admit students on the basis of their Class 12 marks surpassing the CUET-Common Seat Allocation System process.
A DU SEAT IS NOT ENOUGH ANY MORE
Perhaps the simplest answer is that there is no single thing wrong with Delhi University. The university has become a victim of its own hierarchy. Students still want DU, but increasingly, they want a particular version of DU.
They want certain colleges, or certain courses. Some want certain campuses, certain peer groups, or even certain experiences.
For the most sought-after colleges, this creates an overwhelming rush of applications.
For colleges such as Bhagini Nivedita and Satyawati, it can mean empty classrooms even when the university as a whole remains one of the most coveted undergraduate destinations in the country.
For Delhi University, the challenge is no longer just getting students through its gates. It is getting them to want to stay once they know which gate they have been given.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
