The Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has started the process of preparing the seat matrix for engineering admissions for the next academic year in the backdrop of the reservations to be provided for students from the Hyderabad-Karnataka (H-K) region.
Officials at the Government Sri Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic, Seshadri Road, have been asked to prepare new software and collect the requisite information from government, aided, unaided, religious and linguistic minority engineering colleges to prepare the seat matrix ahead of the Common Entrance Test to be held in May next year.
The DTE, in its letter dated November 26 to the principal of the Government S J Polytechnic, has asked the officials to complete the process within a month.
“The reservation for Hyderabad-Karnataka students will change the present allotment of seats, merit lists and rosters not just in those six districts, but in other districts also. We have asked them to collect information pertaining to the intake (seats) in colleges in the H-K region and elsewhere. It is already December and we need to have a working model before March,” DTE Director H U Talawar said.
“This is a precautionary step and we don’t want to scout for cover in the last minute,” he said. He added, “The software we used last year to prepare the seat matrix for engineering and diploma courses can’t be used this time, as the special provision for the H-K region will result in many changes.”
Sources said the officials who developed last year’s software and seat matrix are on deputation at the Government S J Polytechnic.
The Karnataka Educational Institutions (Regulations of Admission in the Hyderabad-Karnataka Region) Order, 2013 notification provides for local reservation of 70 per cent of the available seats in educational institutions in Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, Bidar, Koppal and Bellary districts. Also, eight per cent of seats in institutions in other districts will be reserved for H-K students.
Former Kuvempu University Vice-chancellor P Venkataramaiah said students had nothing to worry as the H-K reservations would benefit meritorious students.
“The engineering seat matrix is prepared considering the existing reservations for social groups,” he added.