Many Intermediate students, those in the second year, fear that they might be caught in the tussle over bifurcation of the State, as proposed by the Congress Working Committee. They are apprehensive of the local and non-local status, which might affect their academic study across the districts.
There were also reports those students from yet to be carved out states, studying in ‘non-home’ territories, are contemplating mass migration. Sensing such an unrest senior academicians feel that the bifurcation may not impact the local and non-local status and are certain that suitable measures would be taken by either of the governments in the event of bifurcation.
Dispelling the fear, Srinivas Rao, Dean of a private institution said, “The rules will be changed or relaxed to suit the students. There is a talk that the residence certificate of parents may be considered to ascertain the local status.” Acquiescing with Mr Srinivas Rao a senior officer from the EAMCET Regional Counselling centre said, “Students need not worry, many solutions such as migration certificate and residence certificate of parents are being discussed and will be considered in the event of bifurcation.” Engineering admissions will be conducted as per the High Court directive during current academic year.
At present the state is divided into three regions for the purpose of admission into professional colleges such as engineering, medical, dental and pharmacy courses. The three regions are: Andhra University, Osmania University and Sri Venkateswara University. Over 700 engineering colleges and over 40 medical colleges are distributed across the 23 districts.
In the event of bifurcation 10 districts will figure under Telangana and 13 under the Seemandhra region. While Osmania University would cater to Telangana region, the AU and SVU will fall under Andhra region. As far as cross academic pursuit is considered it is estimated that about 30,000 students from Telangana region are pursuing Intermediate along with various integrated IIT, medical and EAMCET programmes in Krishna district alone and about 20,000 students from the districts of Krishna, West Godavari and Guntur are in Hyderabad pursing either Intermediate or engineering courses.
According to the present local/non-local rule a candidate shall be regarded as a local candidate in relation to a local area (AU, SVU or OU) if he or she has studied in an educational institution in such local area for a period of not less than four consecutive academic years ending with the academic year in which he or she appeared/first appeared in the relevant qualifying examination as the case may be.
When it comes to seats in engineering colleges, 85 per cent of seats are reserved for local candidates and remaining 15 per cent for open merit candidates where local or non-local or reserved or general category students can compete.
