CHENNAI: The much-awaited counselling for aspirants of engineering seats in Tamil Nadu will be held from Saturday (today). As per the original schedule, counselling should have been held from July 2. But due to delay in medical counselling, it was deferred without announcing any tentative date.

The Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE), which conducts TN Engineering Admissions (TNEA-2023), said that counselling will be held on July 22 for students belonging to special categories including the disabled, wards of ex-servicemen, sports quota and for those who studied in government schools availing 7% horizontal quota.

A senior official from DOTE said: “Counselling for special category students will be held till July 26. For those under general category, it will be held from July 28 to September 3.” He added that counselling this year will be held in three rounds, as against the earlier practice of 4 rounds. “This is due to instructions from the All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE) that the engineering admissions should be completed on or before September 15,” he said. The DOTE had already released the merit list on June 26, which had around 1.78 lakh students in it.

“Students who have secured rank between one and 22,261 will participate in the first round of counselling. Those between 22,762 and 87,049 will attend the second round. Last round is for remaining applicants,” he said.