CHENNAI: Minister for Higher Education P Viswanathan released the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) 2026 rank list in Chennai on Wednesday. In the list, only 53 candidates have secured the maximum
cut-off score of 200 as against 144 last year. With a decline in the number of candidates with the perfect score, and colleges likely offering an 19,657 additional seats this year, those aspiring for engineering admissions in Tamil Nadu can expect lower cut-offs.
Releasing the rank list, Minister Viswanathan announced that 2,36,017 candidates have been awarded ranks out of the 2,45,235 applicants. The rank list comprises 1,30,767 boys, 1,05,245 girls and five transgender candidates.
In this year’s merit list, S Akshitha of Dharmapuri secured the first rank, followed by A Rohith Balan of Tiruppur. A Venkatakrishnan of Namakkal came third.
This year, a total of 484 engineering colleges will participate in the single-window counselling process, including 450 private engineering colleges and seven newly-established institutions. At present, 2,65,594 seats are available. Colleges have sought approval to increase the intake by an additional 19,657 seats, but the final seat matrix will be known only after July 4, once Anna University’s inspection process is completed, the minister said.
Among special category applicants, 46,604 government school students qualified under the 7.5% reservation. A total of 1,176 children of ex-servicemen, 500 disabled candidates and 3,210 applicants under the sports quota also secured ranks.
General counselling for all other candidates will commence on July 20 and continue till August 30, with the government aiming to complete the entire admission process by September 10.
The minister said candidates need not worry about any possible overlap with medical admissions, assuring that the NEET re-test results would be announced ahead of the completion of engineering admissions counselling.
With fewer candidates scoring the perfect score and more engineering seats expected this year, admission cut-offs are likely to be lower, said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi.
He predicted that students with cut-offs between 160 and 200 could see the required score for admissions fall by as much as 10 marks compared to last year. He urged candidates to make informed choices while filling in their college and branch preferences during counselling.
Meanwhile, Viswanathan warned engineering colleges against collecting capitation fees or donations.
The minister also alleged that during the previous regime, engineering colleges were assigned allotment targets through the office of the higher education minister, resulting in “irregularities”. “Such corrupt practices would not continue in the TVK government,” he said.
Awaiting inquiry Report on Asst Prof recruitment: Min
Chennai: Amid uproar over the alleged irregularities in the recent recruitment of assistant professors to government arts and science colleges, Minister for Higher Education P Viswanathan on Wednesday said a meeting to investigate into the allegations was chaired by the Teachers Recruitment Board’s (TRB) chairman on Tuesday.
“They will submit the inquiry report today or tomorrow. We are waiting for it. Only after receiving it will it be appropriate to discuss the next steps,” the minister told media persons in Chennai. Candidates have alleged that many who took the recent TRB’s assistant professor recruitment examination were awarded zero in the 50-mark descriptive answer part even though they scored over 100 out of the total 150 in the objective type section.