BA seats see 17% fall in govt colleges

Chandigarh: The number of seats in Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme has decreased by 17% or more in three out of four government colleges in the Union Territory over the past six academic sessions (2018-19 to 2024-25).
According to past prospectuses, the total number of BA seats across the four government colleges in 2018-19 was 2,920, which has now gone down to 2,500, reflecting an overall reduction of 17%.However, the decrease in seats varies among the colleges. PGGC, Sector 11, the top priority college this year, experienced a 33.3% decrease, followed by PGGC, Sector 46, with a 25.5% dip, and PGGCG, Sector 42, with a 16.6% fall. Only PGGCG, Sector 11, saw an increase of 12.5% in BA seats.

Mukul from Panjab University, who had shared this information with the director of higher education recently, said, “PGGC, Sector 11 used to admit over 1,200 students in 2016, and now it is just 400. On the other hand, seats in aided colleges have either remained the same or increased, like in Khalsa College, where they have gone up from 1,300 to 2,200. PGGC, Sector 11 is one of the prominent co-educational government colleges, and such a decrease in seats puts students from humble backgrounds in a difficult position, especially boys.”
More than 20,000 applications were received for three non-centralised courses across 10 UT colleges — four government and six aided institutions. Out of the total 8,680 seats available across these colleges, approximately 2,500 (30 per cent) are in government colleges.
Of over 22000 applications received by 1 pm on July 5, the majority (over 75%) are for BA courses. Among all these, one of the colleges where a high number of applications were received was Post Graduate Government College (PGGC), Sector 11, with over 4,844 applications and more than 50% of approximate applications are for UT govt colleges.
One of the college principals, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “Some subjects like English or other miscellaneous disciplines are common in every course. Over time, faculty members have been retiring, but no new recruitment is taking place. We do not have the liberty to decrease seats in other courses like BCom or others. In BA, there are no criteria. And when we face a faculty shortage in these disciplines, we need to strike a balance somewhere, hence the decrease in seats.
The director of higher education was not reachable.