2% quota for sportspersons in engineering counselling from next academic year: Ponmudy

CHENNAI: From the next academic year onwards (2025-2026), sports persons will have 2% reservation in engineering counselling, said Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy, after inaugurating the much-awaited counselling for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA-2024) from the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) here on Monday.

“At present, the sports quota has only 500 seats against over 2,000 applications. This reservation will encourage more students to pursue higher studies,” he added.

On the day one, counselling was held for students with disabilities, wards of ex-service men and sports persons, who studied in government schools for availing 7.5% horizontal reservation. Minister Ponmudy said that 664 students from the disabled category have applied for 111 available engineering seats.

“Similarly, 282 students have applied under the sports quota for 38 seats, and 38 wards of ex-servicemen have applied for 11 seats,” he stated. “Those, who could not get the seats according to their choice, can participate in the counselling, which will be held for general category.”

From July 25-27, counselling will be held for students in the special reservation category that includes disabled candidates, wards of ex-servicemen and applicants under sports quota. As per the schedule, general counselling for students from academic category, government school candidates who avail 7.5% horizontal quota and students seeking vocational courses will be held from July 29 to September 3.

There will be 3 rounds in the general counselling, where more than 1.7 lakh students will participate according to their rank list. Students, who have secured between 200 and 179 marks in general category will participate in the first round, which will go on from July 29-31. Provisional allotment will be made on August 10 for those participating in the first round.

In the second round, candidates with cut-off marks between 178.9 and 142 will participate from August 10-12. Provisional allotment will be made on August 23. The third and final round of counselling will be held from August 23-28 for students with cut-off marks between 141.9 and 77. Provisional allotment for them will be made on September 4.

The Minister said that 433 engineering colleges across Tamil Nadu were participating in the counselling process. “Total number of available engineering seats this academic year is 2.4 lakh, and eligible candidates are 1.79 lakh students,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the DOTE has also released seat matrices for all category students.