By Team Mangalorean

MANGALORE, February 14, 2010: The aspirants of a seat in any of the 20 National Institutes of Technology (NIT) from Karnataka may have to try harder to get into their dream courses in NITs. From the academic year 2008-09 they will have to feature in the all India merit list to enter any of the NITs other than the one situated in their home state.

A decision of this effect of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has been conveyed to the Central Counselling Board (CCB)  though a letter signed by the Director (Technical) of the MHRD.

The students of Karnataka stand a slim chance to study in the NITs outside their domicile state. Those students did not get a seat in National Institute of Technology-Karnataka (NITK) will have to undergo to the ranking system under the AIEEE. The NITK has a total strength of 610 seats and in the past 305 seats were available for students from Karnataka and 305 seats were filled by outside students based on their preference of place. This change of policy will spur an imbalance in the share of seats to the Karnataka students as they are generally lower in the ranking on all India basis. The NITK sent 212 students last year to study in other NITs and all of them had got seats. But this time it might not be the case.

A source in the NITK told Mangalorean.com that In all India rankings students from Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand were on the top of the list in last academic year, while only few students from Karnataka feature on the first 600 merit list”.

Those students in Karnataka who do not come up to the grade in AIEEE on all India rank list may have to restrict themselves to the 50 percent of seats allotted to the NITK.

Generally all the NITs in the country were preparing and re-adjusting their seat strength to include 27 percent for students belonging to Other Backward Castes.

It could be recalled here that all the NITs which were once Regional Engineering Colleges before they were taken over by the Central government for up-gradation to the NITs.