At the end of the third phase of academic counselling for engineering admissions in the State, only 12,336 seats are available as the number of candidates who have been allotted seats reached 1.02 lakh, crossing the one lakh mark for the first time in history.
Last year, there were over 30,000 seats unfilled and there were some colleges which had no takers, Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions 2010 secretary V. Rhymend Uthariaraj said. This year, in 81 per cent of the colleges, at least 80 per cent of the seats had been filled, he said. He pointed out that 21 new colleges had been added this year taking the total number of engineering colleges coming under counselling to 469 in the State.
One of the reasons for the positive response has been the tuition fee waiver scheme for first generation graduates. Over 63,000 candidates [around 63 per cent] have availed themselves of this scheme, Dr. Uthariaraj said.
The Tamil medium seats introduced in the Mechanical Engineering and Civil Engineering disciplines have also been taken up with only 10 seats remaining. Many of the candidates who chose these courses were from Tamil medium in school, Dr. Uthariaraj said.
The percentage of candidates from rural areas this year was 67.37 per cent compared to 64.71 per cent last year. Dr. Uthariaraj said this was in keeping with the increasing trend of more rural candidates getting engineering seats each year.
In 2005, 55.72 per cent of seats were allotted to rural candidates. This increased to 58.26 per cent in 2006, to 60.79 per cent in 2007, and to 64.63 per cent in 2008, Dr. Uthariaraj said. The fourth phase of counselling will be held on August 12 and August 13, for candidates scoring between 86 and 92 and for candidates scoring below 86 marks respectively. Applications for supplementary counselling will be distributed on August 14 and August 16, and spot registration for supplementary counselling will take place on those dates.
