CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission (TNEA) online counselling for seats reserved under special categories began on Wednesday, kicking off a month-long counselling process to admit students to 440 engineering colleges in the State, where over 1.50 lakh seats are available.
Along with eminent sportspersons, ex-servicemen and disabled persons, students who studied from Classes 6 to 12 in government schools participated in the first day of counselling. The Higher Education department introduced a 7.5 per cent reservation for government school students in professional courses from this year, which is why they were included in the special category counselling.
According to the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE), at least 15,660 students from government schools are on the rank list and are eligible to participate in the counselling. As many as 11,390 seats have been reserved for students from government schools.
While counselling was done online last year, this time, over 45 TNEA Facilitation Centres have been opened across the State to help students. Counselling for general category students will be held from September 27 to October 17, after which supplementary counselling will be held from October 19 to 23.