Tamil Nadu Govt. Favours Single-Window Admission System for Engineering

Considering the well-being of the students belonging to the socio-economically weaker sections, the Government of Tamil Nadu told the Madras High Court that a single window for admissions to engineering programmes enables these students to apply for all courses offered by all colleges in the state and choose either one of them (on merit basis) by filling just one admission form.

An affidavit was filed by the state government before the bench of Justice K Ravichandra Baabu in order to defend the single-window admission system basis which admissions to the state-based technical colleges are done. The affidavit was submitted in response to a plea that implored the court to scrap the single-window admission system for the session 2017-18.

The affidavit was filed on Thursday, July 20, 2017, by the Department of Higher Education in reply to the challenges made by various Self-Financing Engineering Colleges in Tamil Nadu and Tirunelveli Anna University of Technology’s Management Association.

The association asked the court to grant them the authority fill up the seats in these private colleges according to their own norms. However, the request was later changed and the association asked the court to grant them permission to conduct admissions under government quota after payment of fees decided by the Fee Fixation Committee for the session 2017-18.

Justice Baabu looked into the matter and directed the additional advocate general to get instructions regarding the request. The case has been put up for further hearing on July 26, 2017.

In its counter-affidavit, the authorities also mentioned that the reservation policies set up by the Central as well as the state governments must be followed by all colleges. These policies include reservations on the basis of sports quota, student category, ex-service men and others.

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The affidavit also stated that on the basis of the state counselling the state government provided first generation graduates fee waiver regardless of their socio-economic status.

According to the affidavit, a total of 526 self-financing (99 minority and 387 non-minority) engineering institutes had agreed to share 65% of their seats with the government in non-minority institutions and 50% seats in minority institutions for TNEA 2017. Furthermore, the institutions were also willing to participate in seat allotment and counselling organised by Anna University in 2017.

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The government further added that the counselling for engineering admissions was underway and changing the norms midway will create a lot of confusion amongst the students.