NEW DELHI: The Covid-19 pandemic is set to push the new session of engineering and medical colleges to November this year while the session for first-year students in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) could start only by December.
Government officials told this newspaper that due to the unprecedented delay in entrance examinations, the Union Ministry of Health is set to prepare a new schedule for admission to MBBS and BDS courses in medical colleges across India.
At the same time, universities in states including IITs and AICTE are also preparing afresh for the batches of students enrolling in the first year.
As per the new schedule, the National Testing Agency under the HRD Ministry will conduct the JEE Main from 1 to 6 September and the results will be released by September 10 or 11. After this, the process of counselling for admission to BTech programme and seat allotment in engineering colleges will start.
“Online seat allocation is being planned to start from mid-September to October. For vacant seats, spot rounds of seat allocation will be held in November,” said an NTA official.
The National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) for admission to the medical colleges, on the other hand, has been rescheduled for September 13.
“The results for this test may take 15 to 20 days or even more. So we are expecting the online seat allocation to begin only after mid-October,” explained a health ministry official, adding that this would mean that classes in medical colleges could start only by November.
Meanwhile, officials in the IITs said that there would be 5 rounds of counselling this year, instead of the usual 7.
JEE Advanced, the admission test for IITs and NITs, has been scheduled for September 27. “The results are likely to be out by the first week of October. After this, counselling will commence but given the disruption, we are planning to complete the admission process in five rounds only this year,” said a senior IIT official. “This will allow us to begin the session for new students at the earliest."
To make up for the lost time in the new session, IITs are looking to convert Saturdays into working days and also cut down summer and winter holidays in 2021.