Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Even after three rounds of CUET-PG counselling, several MBA programmes at Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) continue to face a shortage of students, prompting the university to allow direct admissions at the department level.

According to officials, this is the first time that DAVV has witnessed such low interest in its MBA programmes. Seven key courses — MBA in E-Commerce, Tourism, Foreign Trade, Business Analytics, Computer Management, Entrepreneurship and Media Management — still have 15–20% of their seats vacant.

Experts attribute the low turnout to the delayed CUET-PG results and data sharing, along with the fact that relatively few students from Madhya Pradesh qualify through CUET-PG.

DAVV offers admissions to 1,450 seats across two dozen postgraduate courses through CUET-PG. This year, although around six lakh candidates appeared for the exam nationwide, the first round of counselling at DAVV saw only about 1,400 applications, followed by around 300 in the second round. By the end of two rounds, only 800 seats were filled.

The university then conducted a separate third round of counselling exclusively for 14 MBA programmes. Out of 369 available seats in this round, only 200 were registered for, bringing the total applicants across all rounds to about 1,600.

While popular courses like MBA in Financial Administration, Marketing Management, Human Resources, Financial Services, Business Economics, Advertising & Public Relations and International Business are now full with 230 admissions, the remaining seven courses continue to have vacancies.

To address the shortfall, DAVV will now conduct department-level counselling (DLC), offering direct admission to CUET-PG qualified candidates. “Even those who have not registered earlier can participate in the process,” said CUET coordinator Dr Rajesh Sharma.