The colleges of Delhi University came to life on Friday, the opening day of admissions based on the first cut-off list. A large number of seats were filled in many colleges — some even saw admissions to more than a third of their total available seats. However, in spite of the liberal relaxation given to them by colleges, the number of OBC candidates coming forward for admissions was low, like last year.

Hansraj College admitted around 400 students on Friday; the total number of seats at the college is around 1,000. For the 189 seats in BCom (Hons), Hansraj admitted 57 students, while the Science courses saw a larger percentage of admissions, with Physics and Chemistry (Hons) getting 44 and 57 admissions, respectively, out of the 61 seats available in each course. Only three OBC candidates were admitted to the college on Friday.

S R Arora, principal of Hansraj College, is hopeful that this year the OBC seats will be filled in much larger numbers than last year. “I am hopeful that students will come forward when we lower the cut-offs,” he said.

At Hindu College, the number of admissions crossed the 250 mark out of 620 seats in total. But the showing for OBC seats was again dismal. “We were not able to tabulate today’s data completely, therefore, I can’t give any numbers but the number of OBC candidates who turned up for admissions today was very small,” Subhash Choudhary, Principal of Hindu College, said.

He said when the general category cut-offs are so high, a maximum relaxation of 10 per cent would not be enough to fill up the OBC seats. “If the trend continues, I don’t think the seats will be filled up completely but it is too early still to say anything,” Choudhary said.

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