Final decision by Centre after July 13

NEW DELHI, June 25 – Despite protests by States against the new policy of admission in National Institute of Technology (NIT), the Human Resources Development Ministry is likely to wait till July 13 to assess the situation before taking a final decision. There may be a few States, which have apprehensions over not getting seats in various technical institutions at the same level, as they were getting earlier. “The exact position depends on exercise of choices by the candidates and hence, would be clear only by end of first round of counselling by the Central Counselling Board (CCB) on the July 13,” official sources said.Under the circumstances, the June 26 meeting of the Technical Education Secretaries convened by the HRD Ministry may be just a formality. “All efforts will be made to give satisfaction to all States,” Ministry however assured.Conveying the anxiety of loosing out on number of seats, Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi in a letter to Union HRD Minister, Arjun Singh said that the last minute change of policy has caused great uncertainty and resentment among the students. An estimated 250 students from Assam normally gets selected to the technical institutes according to old policy.Now it is feared that the number would go down to 15 seats.Gogoi further pointed out that the Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) were converted NITs with the clear understanding that the reciprocal system of allotment of seats would continue. However, HRD Ministry sources said there were situations when candidates with higher marks from some States were not getting admissions in NITs whereas some candidates from other State with lower marks were getting admissions. The old system had other demerits like, candidates from a particular category with very low marks from certain States getting admission, while candidates from the same category with much higher marks but from some other State being denied admission. The system was also prone to be misused by the scheming elements, it claimed.Admissions in 20 NITs are made on the basis of AIEEE conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education. Till last year, the seats in an NIT used to be filled by allocating 50 per cent of the seats to the eligible candidates of the States, where an NIT is located and rest 50 per cent of the seats (Outside State quota) were allocated to other States. These outside State quota seats allocated to different States used to be filled by the eligible candidates from these States based on their State specific AIEEE ranks. To streamline the system, the Ministry has issued instructions to the CCB 2008 directing it to fill the outside State quota seats in NITs on all India merit basis. Source: assam tribune