VIJAYAWADA: With AP Polycet counselling slated to commence from May 24 onwards, chances of implementation of 10 per cent reservations for Economically Backward Sections (EWS) from this academic year remains slim. Though officials of the BC Welfare department decided to implement the EWS reservations from this year onwards, the guidelines are yet to be finalised. The officials are running out of time for implementation of EWS quota as the counselling for all the Common Entrance Tests are slated to commence within a month’s time.
Apart from the approaching counselling schedule, the officials are also facing time constraints over the technical needs for the implementation of the EWS reservation. Officials of the education department said that the implementation of EWS quota may not be possible from this year as the counselling schedules have been finalised and will be materialised online. If the EWS quota is to be implemented for online counselling, a software update is required which takes some time, a luxury which the officials can’t afford.
Speaking to TNIE, Technical Education department commissioner G S Panda Das said, “We haven’t receive any guidelines from the State government yet. So, we might go for the admissions without the EWS reservations for this academic year. If the government wants it to be implemented at any cost, then the counselling schedules for all CETs will be delayed.
Also, the software will have to be updated which might take up to a month’s time.”Under the 10 percent EWS quota, five percent of the seats are reserved for EWS-OC category while the remaining seats are reserved for EWS-Kapu (Kapu, Telaga, Balija, Ontari).