Stick to merit, engg colleges told

[Kalyan]

Stick to merit, engg colleges told

Panel Says Pvt Colleges Can't Admit Students On Their Own

Chennai: Self-financing engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu cannot individually admit students into the BE/B.Tech programmes. The Justice M Thanikachalam Committee for Admissions, constituted under directions from the Supreme Court in the Islamic Academy case, is learnt to have instructed the managements of self-financing engineering colleges not to admit any student on their own.

    "The committee has informed the managements of all engineering colleges pointing out that as per the Supreme Court ruling, admissions under the management quota can be made only by adhering to the concept of inter se merit.

The students should be admitted against the management quota seats only through a centralised process under the aegis of the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu. If colleges do not want to be part of the consortium's admission process, they must surrender their management quota seats to the government quota. Any admission made otherwise will per se be illegal," revealed a chairman of a college in Tiruvallur district.

    As of now, 65% of the seats in private engineering colleges administered by minority trusts and 50% seats in unaided technical institutions administered by non-minority trusts have been earmarked as "management quota" seats. The rest of the seats is classified as "government quota" seats and are filled up through single window counselling by the Anna University (Chennai).

    The Supreme Court's justification of a centralised admission process is that it will facilitate inter se merit.
    Some reputable engineering colleges in the state had been admitting students by adhering to the concept of merit through an entrance examination. It is learnt that the managements of a couple of wellknown colleges are planning to move the court challenging the directive of the Justice Thanikachalam committee.