Categories: JEE MainJEE Main 2017

Special counselling for NITs from today

The ministry of Human Resource Development relaxed the eligibility criteria for admissions in eight National Institute of Technology (NITs) based in North East states on Wednesday. The move came after out of 1,359 seats in these eight NITs only 859 seats in the home state quota were filled after the seventh round of counselling concluded on July 26. There were 2,300 vacant seats against total 17,868 seats in 31 NITs till 8pm on July 26.

The Central Seat Allocation Board (MNIT, Jaipur) will start a special vacancy filling round for 2,300 seats in NITs + systems from July 27 till July 29. Professor Awadhesh Bhardwaj, coordinator of Central Seat Allocation Board, said, “The special vacancy filling round is the last chance for students to grab a seat in NITs. Successful students will be reporting to allocated institutes till August 2.”

The seats in every NIT are divided into two quotas—home state quota and other state quota with 50% seats in each quota. Students who have appeared in Class XII from North East states are eligible for the home state quota. The eligibility criteria has been relaxed in home state quota only. As per the new criteria, 75% mandatory marks in Class XII for general and OBC categories have been reduced to 45% in the same categories.

While in other reserved categories like SC and ST, the mandatory Class XII marks have been reduced from 65% to 40% .

The ministry is hoping that that move will motivate students to fill the vacant seats.

As per data from the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSSA), last closing rank after the seventh round of seat allotment was 10, 44, 649 (general category) in home state quota in NIT, Sikkim.

The new rules will allow even candidates holding the last rank in the merit list of 13 lakh candidates who appeared in the exam to claim a seat. Experts are also holding a view that such bending of rules will encourage students to appear in Class XII from the North East in order to grab a seat in the eight NITs, namely, NIT-Agartala, NIT-Sikkim, NIT-Mizoram, NIT-Meghalaya, NIT-Arunachal, NIT-Silchar, NIT-Nagaland and NIT-Manipur.

The new rule also says that if any home quota seats are left after the exemption, they should be converted into all-India quota. These seats should be filled on the basis of merit in the given category only. Other NITs where seats are vacant are Jalandhar, Kurukshetra, Raipur, Delhi, Srinagar to name a few.

MNIT, Jaipur, is conducting counselling for JEE this year. The Central Seat Allocation Board (MNIT, Jaipur) which is responsible for counselling informed that NIT-Delhi has 25 vacant seats and NIT-Srinagar has 47 vacant seats.

Amit Jain