The exam centres for Engineering Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAMCET) will go up drastically this year, not because the number of aspirants has increased but the Government is facing a peculiar problem of identifying institutions that can accommodate more than 1,000 candidates.
After the private colleges threatened to withdraw their centres opposing the proposed vigilance inspections, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao decided to postpone the EAMCET and asked the officials to search for Government institutions only. However, officials are finding it difficult to finalise centres that can accommodate 1000 to 1500 students at a time. Most of the Government institutions are small and don’t have the infrastructure that several private engineering colleges enjoy.
“So the number of exam centres may cross 300 this year,” said an official involved in the process. As per the original schedule the EAMCET was supposed to be held in 162 private institutions apart from 50-odd Government institutions. However, with lesser accommodation the number of centres will go up to accommodate the two-lakh odd aspirants in both engineering and medical streams.
When contacted Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) Chairman T. Papi Reddy said that the efforts were on and even the central institutions like NIT, Warangal and IIIT Hyderabad are also being considered. Most government institutions are small and we are identifying the good centres so that students will not face any problems during the examination.
A senior official also said that infrastructure was not up to the mark in Government institutions and this was also a reason for careful selection. Prof. Papi Reddy, however, said “come what may, we will not use private institutions as wished by the Chief Minister. And it will be applicable to all Common Entrance Tests (CETs) in Telangana. So it means candidates have to download fresh hall-tickets”.
