Engg counselling scheduled from Oct 8 to be delayed?

Engg counselling scheduled from Oct 8 to be delayed?

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:07.10.2020

The round-wise schedule for online engineering counselling for the general category is yet to be announced, sparking doubts that the process will be delayed.

The Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee said counselling would begin from October 8, but is yet to notify how many students qualify for each round and dates for filling choices, tentative allotment and initial payment. The TNEA committee released the rank list for 1,12,406 candidates on September 28. TNEA officials said the higher education minister K P Anbalagan would release the schedule on Wednesday. They refused to comment when asked whether the counselling will begin as scheduled.

Sources said the minister was busy with the political developments in the AIADMK, which is set to announce its CM candidate on Wednesday.

Last year, the choice filling started from July 8 for the first round. But, the TNEA had declared the complete schedule on July 1 giving more time for students to decide.

Educational consultant D Nedunchezhiyan said the round-wise schedule should have been released at least a week ago to help students prepare. TNEA has released the videos to help the students to prepare the choice list and pay the initial payment through online. However, experts argue students need schedule to know whether they are part of round 1or round 2 and when to give their choices.

Career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi said there’s nothing wrong in postponing counseling by a week. “The counselling is scheduled to begin before the first round of Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSSA) for central institutions and medical admissions. There are many IIT aspirants and NEET aspirants in the TNEA 2020 rank list. If the counselling is conducted before JoSSA and medical counselling, all top colleges will have huge vacancies,” he pointed out.

The online choice filling for round 1 for the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) began on Tuesday. The first round of online counselling for IITs, NITs, IIITs will go on till October 17. Anna University former VC E Balagurusamy said when the engineering counselling was conducted by Anna University, it had total control and the minister would visit only during the release of rank list. “Since the directorate of technical education is conducting the counselling now, they are waiting for the approval of the minister for every move which is unfortunate,” he said.

TNEA is yet to notify how many students qualify for each round and dates for filling choices, tentative allotment and initial payment