7.5 pc govt students quota likely to benefit 15,000 engg aspirants

Registration for engineering admission was over last week, and more than 1.4 lakh students have made the payment and uploaded their certificates. The Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE) will release the rank list on September 4. 

T Purushothaman, Additional Director of Higher Education Department and the official in-charge of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA-2021) told DT Next that of the total applicants, about 24,000 studied in government and aided schools. The exact number of students from State-run schools would be known only after the entire admission process, including counselling, was over, he added. “Some students might opt for other courses after counselling,” he added. 

Another official pointed out that there are around two lakh engineering seats are available in the State. Of these, nearly 15,000 would be reserved for government and aided school students. 

Anticipating the government’s announcement in connection with horizontal reservation in professional courses as was done for medical aspirants, the DoTE had already tweaked the application form to add the option to mention if the candidate was from government school system from Class 6. 

A senior official from the Higher Education Department said the total number of beneficiaries in professional courses like veterinary, fisheries and law would be known only after the admission process was over. 

However, around 40 of the 580 seats at the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Science University (Tanuvas) and its constituent colleges; 120 of the 1,652 seats in the 14 government law colleges and one private institute; about 300 of the around 4,000 UG seats in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU); and 10 of the 140 UG seats at Tamil Nadu Dr J Jayalalithaa Fisheries University would come under the quota.