CHENNAI: As expected, the Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE) will conduct the online engineering counselling this year after a gap of two decades.
For the last 22 years, Anna University (AU) has been conducting the engineering counselling, but this year the DoTE has been entrusted with the job after AU’s Vice-Chancellor M K Surappa resigned as chairman of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions(TNEA) and Tamil Nadu Common Admission (for PG courses).
Surappa sent his resignation to Higher Education Secretary Mangat Ram Sharma in February as he was reportedly upset with the untimely reconstitution of the TNEA committee. Sources said the committee was constituted in November 2017 for a period of three years, but suddenly it was reconstituted this year without any reason and Surappa was not even consulted on the matter.
After Surappa’s resignation, it was speculated that the DoTE would be conducting the counselling this year as DoTE Commissioner R Vivekanandan was made co-chairman of the TNEA committee.
According to sources, the Higher Education department has asked the AU to provide necessary technical help to the DoTE to ensure smooth conduct of the counselling.
However, AU officials are not in a mood to get involved in any way in the process. “If we provide technical help, then we will be literally conducting the online counselling as our staff will be involved in the process. If the Vice-Chancellor has resigned from the TNEA committee, how can one expect the university officials to get involved in the counselling process,” said a senior faculty member.
Despite repeated attempts, the Higher Education secretary could not be contacted for his comments on the issue.