Outside state quota in NITs to be filled on all India merit basis

New Delhi, Jun 23 (UNI) Outside state quota seats in 20 National Institutes of Technology (NITs) would now be filled on All India merit basis.

The Human Resource Development Ministry has sent a directive to the Central Counselling Board (CCB) in this connection, and has also convened a meeting of Technical Education Secretaries of states and Union Territories on June 26 to address their problems arising out of its directive.

Admissions in NITs are made on the basis of AIEEE conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education.

Till 2007, the seats in these institutions used to be filled by allocating 50 per cent of the seats to the eligible candidates of the states where an NIT was located and rest 50 per cent of the seats (outside state quota) were allocated to other states/UTs.

These outside state quota seats allocated to different States/UTs used to be filled by the eligible candidates based on their State/UT specific AIEEE ranks.

With this system of filling outside state quota seats, there were situations when candidates with higher marks from some States/UTs were not getting admissions in NITs whereas other candidates from other State/UTs with lower marks could obtain it.

This system had other demerits like, possible situations where 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.

To streamline the system and to reduce these demerits, the Ministry had to send the above directive.

With the changed scenario, there may be a few states/UTs which may have apprehensions of not getting representation 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 1st round of counselling on July 13 , 2008.

The June 26, meeting has been called to address the apprehension of these states.

UNI NAZ AM AS1727