Chennai: Counselling for B.E., B.Tech. courses commenced on Monday with 40,000 surplus seats, around 20,000 less compared to last year.
For the first time in many years, engineering counselling started ahead of MBBS counselling due to the confusion surrounding medical admissions. Totally 1.75 lakh seats are available for both vocational and academic counselling. Of 1.41 lakh applicants, 1.36 lakh have been found eligible for counselling.
After one lakh seats fell vacant last year, many engineering colleges have trimmed do-wn their intake so the number of seats available for engineering counselling was down by 18,000 seats. Due to poor placements and layoffs by IT companies, around 1 lakh seats may fall vacant this year as well.
On Monday, more than 600 students belonging to vocational stream chose seats at the counselling. There are 6,224 seats available for vocational stream and 2,084 students have applied for counselling.
Higher education minister K.P. Anbalagan handed over the admission letters to the top rankers in the vocational stream. P. Ajith, the top ra-nker, has chosen Electronics and Electrical Engineering in PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore. “Parent or guardian of girl students can avail lodging facilities at Anna University this year as well.
Those who attend the first session in the morning can get the accommodation for the previous night or those who attend the last session counselling can get it for that night,” Anbalagan said. Anna University Registrar S.Ganesan said male relative of girl students can also be provided accommoda-tion this year. In the previous year, only women guardians were provided with accommodation. The Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions committee has released the list of the engineering colleges with the similar names for the benefit of students on Monday at its website. It has advised students to note down college de-tails like the code number and address to avoid confusion.
