4,000 Engineering seats under 7.5 percent reservation remain vacant in Tamil Nadu

Sources from the Directorate of Technical Education, (DoTE), which conducts engineering admissions, said more than 30,000 students from State-run institutions had registered online. But, according to the Additional Director of Higher Education Department and Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA-2021) in-charge Dr T Purushothaman, only 15,161 government school students found place in the rank list. From those, only 7,324 students under 7.5 per cent horizontal quota made into the provisional allotment. Of the total 1,51,870 available engineering seats in more than 450 colleges, the quota would fetch around 11,400 seats—leaving nearly 4,000 seats vacant.

“Many students, especially from the rural areas, were forced to depend on browsing centres as they do not have internet connections at home for filing their applications online,” P Ravikumar, a students’ consultant, said.

Students of government schools have to submit proof for each year of their education through Chief Educational Officers (CEO) and not through headmasters.

“It would be difficult for students who studied in different government schools to get transfer certificates and worse to get certificates from CEOs,” he added Following complaints from the applicants, Purushothaman said, students who faced difficulty in getting TCs were allowed to participate in the general counselling.