Thiruvananthapuram: The state government and the admission supervisory committee headed by Justice J.M. James are on a collision course over the NRI quota in self-financing engineering colleges.
The committee says prior permission of the All-India Council for Technical Education is needed to admit NRI students. In the case of self-financing colleges, this procedure has not been followed.
For years, the NRI quota was fixed at 15 percent. However, the AICTE had reduced it to 5 percent recently. The state continued with 15 percent quota as per the agreement with self-financing engineering colleges.
In the case of a course with 100 students, the NRI quota would be 15 students as per this agreement. Out of a total of 25,760 seats available in private self-financing colleges, 1,717 seats are earmarked for NRI quota.
The colleges have already made admissions to this quota. When this came to the notice of the James committee, it issued an order reducing the quota to five percent.
However, the state government issued another order changing the name of the quota to NRK dependants’ quota. Justice James told DC that the committee was examining the legality of the government order.
Even if the NRI quota is renamed, the same procedures have to be followed and the quota has to be restricted to five percent, Justice James said.
