With relief written all over their faces, hundreds of students queued up in front of the counselling centres to get their certificates verified on the first day of the engineering counselling that started in 23 helpline centres in Telangana on Thursday.
Parents accompanying the students looked more relieved as the counselling process that created a political storm was finally resolved with both the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Governments sorting out the issues to ensure that admissions are completed by August 31 so that classes can start on September 1 as per the Supreme Court guidelines.
The top 25,000 rankers were called on the first day and the turn out was moderate as expected, with majority of the top rankers preferring IITs, NITs, IIITs and other national institutions over the State engineering colleges. Admission officials at the Sanketika Vidya Bhavan in Masab Tank said that the process was smooth across the State.
However, students and their guardians are still confused on the fee reimbursement scheme. Parents were found enquiring with the officials on the state of the Financial Assistance to Telangana Students (FAST) scheme and whether they would be eligible for fee reimbursement after the admissions.
Students, who secured below 10,000 ranks, are eligible, if their parents’ income is below Rs. 1 lakh per annum, for seeking total fee reimbursement irrespective of the college fee structure as against the Rs.35,000 ceiling for candidates above 10,000 rank.
This year, students figuring in the top 10,000 ranks were curious to know whether the facility would be extended to them like last year or the FAST guidelines will put an end to the practice.
Officials said that 11,030 candidates in the top 25,000 are from Telangana of which nearly 6,061 students attended the certificate verification. The total candidates who passed engineering stream in EAMCET from Telangana are around 88,000.
WebsiteMeanwhile, students complained that the website https://eamcet.nic.in is not opening and they could not check the schedule. Officials said that it will open only in Internet Explorer 9.0 and above version only and the screen resolution needs to be 1024 by 768. Officials said that no scratch card or password will be given to students during certificate verification but it will be sent to the registered mobiles of students a day before web options open for them as per schedule.
