With the CSAB-NEUT Counseling already in process, many young aspiring engineers from Nagaland will be keeping their fingers crossed as to whether they will get an engineering branch of their choice or not. Well, it’s all in God’s hands now and only He knows what is in store for you. I wish you luck.
As far as the naga students from Nagaland are concerned, we have a tendency of only wanting to take up civil or electrical engineering branch thinking that it guarantees a white collar job in the offices of Nagaland. As a result, many young students fail to take up their seats in branches such as mechanical, chemical, electronics and communication engineering etc. that is allocated to them. Over the past three years of my Engineering studies, I’ve been sadly witnessing this trend. For example, in the year 2014 in which I joined engineering, of the five (5) Mechanical Engineering seats that were allocated to the state of Nagaland through the MHRD in our college only Four (4) turned up. Similarly, both in 2015 and 2016 only four (4) turned up. Of the four (4) students who came to our college to study mechanical engineering allocated to the state of Nagaland in 2015, one was a Non-Schedule Tribe candidate residing in Nagaland. As per my conversation with some officials from the concerned department, the reason why such filling up was done was because of the lack of naga candidates to take up such seats. This, in my opinion is a big loss and a missed golden opportunity for the nagas.
My appeal to all students who have registered for CSAB-NEUT Counseling for this year is this, please avail the opportunity and take up the branch that is given to you though it may not necessarily be the coveted civil/electrical branch. After all, no engineering branch is inferior to the other. How one fares in life after graduation will depend upon how one studies during his engineering student career. Indeed, in almost every other state, only the best and brightest of students compete for those engineering branches such as mechanical, chemical and electronics which we nagas dread to take up.
As for 2014-2015 academic year, of the total 150 seats that was allocated to Nagaland for nomination in various Engineering courses, there were only forty (40) civil Engineering and fifteen (15) Electrical Engineering seats. Assuming that this still continues to this day, we know that all the students that had registered for counseling can’t be given seats in these two branches. Yet, we all know that there is a world beyond them and that this world is filled with lots of opportunities for anyone who wholeheartedly does things that has been given them irrespective of field/ branch.
In conclusion, I would like to request all those candidates who are not interested in taking up the branch that is given them even after the final round of counseling to please report it to the concerned department so that they can make necessary replacements. Please do not take the Seat Allotment letter from DoTE if you are not interested in the branch that is given you. The reason why I make this request is because there have been many instances where students after taking the allotment Letter and completion of all formalities from DoTE for certain Engineering branches decided afterwards not to pursue it. This result in the wastage of Engineering seats reserved for Nagaland which does not have many Engineering colleges. I believe, for every vacant seat, we are losing the chance for the development of human resource in our state.
Yekiho Sumi
L D College of Engineering.
