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NITs: more seats for ‘deficient ’ States

Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI: States without a National Institute of Technology (NIT) or “highly deficient” in technical institutions will be allotted more seats in NITs from this academic session. This was decided by the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry on Thursday after a meeting with Technical Education Secretaries of such States.

This concession has been made in view of the apprehensions expressed by such States about the new admission policy introduced by the Ministry vis-À-vis filling of seats in the non-domicile quota of NITs. As per the fresh directive, this quota — 50 % of seats in each of the 20 NITs — will be filled from the all-India merit list of the All-India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) and not its State/Union Territory specific rank list.

The new system of admissions for the central pool of seats was introduced in view of the fact that the use of State/UT specific rank list had resulted in a scenario where students with lower ranks were getting into NITs while those positioned higher on the merit list were being left out.

Though the HRD Ministry’s directive mandating the all-India rank list of AIEEE as the lone deciding factor for admissions to the non-domicile seats in NITs was aimed at correcting this infirmity, several States — especially those from the North-East — were apprehensive that their students would be left out in the process. Besides the North-Eastern States, the others which fear loss of seats in NITs as a result of the HRD’s directive include Jammu and Kashmir, Goa and Himachal Pradesh.

While refusing to reconsider its directive, the Ministry, however, agreed to compensate “to the extent possible” States without NITs or highly deficient in technical institutions by allocating more seats under the Scheme of “Reservation of seats in technical institutions for State/UTs lacking such facilities.”

Since their inception, the NITs have been filling 50 per cent of their seats from the States where they are located. The remaining 50 per cent seats were distributed among the other States and selection was through State/UT-specific ranks in the AIEEE.

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