CHENNAI: A whopping 271 candidates got an aggregate cut-off mark of 200 on 200 in the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions 2014 to top the rank list for BE and BTech courses released by Tamil Nadu Minister for Higher Education, P Palaniappan, here on Monday. As compared to last year, when just 11 candidates had secured the full aggregate, this year’s competition became intense as 100 candidates had scored full marks in the fourth optional subject as well.
Announcing the details of the rank list, Rhymend Uthariraj, secretary, TNEA, informed that the academic general counselling would begin at the Centre for Entrance Examinations and Admissions, Anna University, at 9 am on June 27. It is scheduled to be completed within 32 days. “Last year the counselling went on for 37 days but according to the court order we will close the engineering admissions by 31 July,” said Uthariraj.
“A total of 3,000 candidates will appear for the single window counselling on the first day and 5,000 per day from the second day onwards,” he added.
As many as 124 ranks have been resolved through random number generation compared to 24 last year. However, it is still a minuscule number compared to the total number of candidates, he said.
Out of the 1,73,687 applications received from the academic and vocational stream, 1,68,423 were found eligible for admission to the first year engineering programme in 496 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, affiliated to Anna University. “The reasons for rejection of certain applications are also uploaded in the website. Rejected candidates can rectify the discrepancies by producing the necessary documents before the counselling begins,” added Uthariraj.
A total of 90,525 candidates claimed the concession for first generation learners, which will entitle them to a fee waiver of `20,000. Under the special reservation category that includes wards of ex-servicemen, differently abled persons and sports persons quota, 7,411 applications have been accepted. The counselling for sports quota is scheduled to be held on June 23 and 24, ahead of the academic stream. The vocational stream counselling will be held at the Ramanujam Computing Centre, Anna University, from July 9.
Sundar Natesh K, a student from Chennai, stood first in the TNEA merit list followed by Abhishek S, also from the city. They had secured the top two ranks in the medical rank list that was released on Saturday as well. Other students on the top 10 list hail from the western districts of Erode, Tirupur, Coimbatore, Namakkal apart from a candidate each from Dindigul and Vellore.