Students will be admitted to undergraduate engineering programmes of the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and other centrally funded technical institutes based on their performance in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Main this year, irrespective of their marks in Class 12 board exams.
In a major relief to the aspiring engineers, the Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB) of the NITs has decided to relax the admission rule for this this in view of the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting the board examinations.
This comes close after the Joint Admission Board (JAB) of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) recently decided to drop the minimum class 12 board marks criteria for admission in the premier technical institutes in view of the situations arising due to coronavirus pandemic.
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“Due to prevailing circumstances, CSAB has decided to relax the eligibility criterion for admissions to NITs and other CFTIs (centrally funded technical institutes),” Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced on Thursday.
For admissions in the NITs and other CFTIs, general category students are required to have secured a minimum 75% marks in Class 12 board exams or figure among the top 20 percentile holders in the qualifying exams, apart from clearing the JEE-Main.
For the students belonging to scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST), the qualifying marks for the entrance test is 65% in the class 12 board exams.
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“JEE Main 2020 qualified candidates will now only need to obtain a passing certificate in class XII examination irrespective of the marks obtained,” the HRD minister said.
The JEE-Main is scheduled to be held from September 1 to September 6 in two shifts every day.
The National Testing Agency (NTA), set up by the government as an autonomous body under the HRD ministry, conducts the entrance test twice in a year, primarily to give opportunity to the engineering aspirants improve their scores. An all India merit list is prepared taking into consideration better of the two NTA scores of all candidates appeared in the two JEE-Main exams.
At least 1.50 lakh top scorers in the JEE-main are eligible for the JEE-Advanced for admission in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other premier technical institutions.
The NTA conducted the first JEE-Main in two shifts every day from January 7 to January 9 at 570 centres across the country and abroad. It announced the results on January 17.
The second JEE-Main was scheduled to be held in April but it had to be rescheduled twice due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
