Second round of Tamil Nadu engineering counselling unlikely

For the first time, the Higher Education Department has decided that vacant seats arising out of students not joining their allotted courses or discontinuing after joining the college can be filled via another phase of counselling.

Accordingly, the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE), a wing of the Higher Education Department, which conduct engineering counselling has made all the arrangements, including keeping the required software ready for conducting the second phase of counselling in December.

Though the DOTE deputy director and in-charge of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions-2021, Dr T Purushothaman told DT Next on Wednesday that till now there was no official notification with regard to the cancellation of the second round of counselling, sources from the Higher Education Department said since All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had asked technical institutions to complete all the engineering admission process before December third week, chances of conducting next phase of counselling is unlikely.

"In addition, the apex court had posted the hearing to February 2022 with regard to the 10% reservation for Vanniyar community, the DOTE will not be in a position to conduct another counselling as the admissions would be delayed when the students join from that," he added.

Pointing out that this academic year, provisional allocation of engineering seats was made to as many as 95,069 students, he said still about 45,000 engineering seats were vacant in colleges, which was about to be filled through the second round of counselling.

He also said that induction programmes have already started in many engineering colleges for the first-year students and therefore, conducting another counselling after the court's verdict will not be feasible for the candidates, who join later.