Kerala : 50% Engg seats to be handed over to Govt

The self-financing engineering college managements have acceded to the government stand that admissions to the merit and management seats should be given only to those who scored a minimum 10 marks in the entrance examination.

The agreement between the 98 engineering colleges and the government was signed here on Tuesday after two-day marathon discussions. These colleges have around 36,800 BTech seats. “The agreement will co me into force at the earliest and admissions will begin soon,“ education minister C Raveendranath said.

The admissions will be made only from the entrance commissioner's rank list, which means that the government has turned down the managements' demand to make admissions from the pre-normalisation list. On the basis of the agreement, 50% seats in 98 colleges will be hand ed over to the government for admission to merit seats. Of these colleges, 57 will charge Rs 50,000 as fee for a year while the remaining will charge Rs 75,000year. The vacant seats reserved for SCST students will not be moved to the OBC and general category unlike till last year. Instead, applications will be invited again to these seats.

The government has agreed to consider allowing managements to admit those who have secured 60% marks in the Plus-Two examination but failed to achieve the minimum cut-off mark in the entrance exam, if seats remained vacant even after admissions from the rank list are completed.The association representatives had met chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan also on Tuesday to push the demand for waiver on minimum marks in the entrance test. However, the government was firm on its stance, following which the 60%mark suggestion was put forward.Nearly 11,000 of the 23,000-plus merit seats were vacant last year.

(ToI)