THANE: Students who applied for admission under the 25 per cent quota reserved for children belonging to economically weaker sections may not get a seat although almost twice the number of seats is available, said education department sources.

Education officers said that the situation has come to this as students selected schools based on their popularity.

There are 10,198 seats available across 402 schools in Thane district under the RTE quota. This year, 4,840 students applied for admission, of which only 1,600 were selected in the first list released last Wednesday.

"Parents have to list schools according to their preferences in the application forms. Most opt for good schools such as DAV and Vasant Vihar, while very few go for the not-so-popular ones. Due to this, the seat capacity in the popular schools is exhausted, while many lie vacant in other schools," Meena Yadav, education officer (primary) at Thane Zilla Praishad, said.

The 1,600 selected students will have to claim their seat and complete the admission process by Saturday. Those who don’t complete this process will forfeit the seat, freeing it for students who have not been selected in the first list, said officials.

"When the list was prepared under the lottery system, those who were selected were immediately sent a text asking them to go to the school and complete the procedure. Those who did not get through were also sent an automated message asking them to wait for the next two lists," Yadav said. "At times, a child may get through in three schools at a time. Since he will have to take admission in only one, the other seats opens up for the others," he added.

The 3,240 students who were not selected in the first list still have a chance to get admission in the second list which will be released in a week.

Officials claimed that the response received this year was much better than the preceding years.

"This year everything was done online, from application to lottery. In the past, when it was done manually, many schools refused to admit these students and filled up their seats with their target category of students. This year, they had to follow the rules because everything was online and transparent. I am sure many more students will get admission this year," Yadav said.