Madras zone shines at IIT-JEE
CHENNAI : The decision of the IITs to call more students for common counselling has ensured that the share of candidates from the Madras zone on the list had risen significantly this year.
The results of the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination 2012, which was declared on Friday, showed that there was a marked increase in the number of candidates from the Madras Zone, comprising the four southern states and Puducherry, on the merit and final counselling lists. However, only 41 candidates from Chennai featured in the top 1,000 of the All Indian rank list while none of the candidates from Coimbatore or Madurai made it to the top 1,000.
While the total number of students who appeared for the examination from the zone was 71,981, those who made it to the merit list increased to 5,004 from 2,195 in the previous year. Of the 5,004, over 3,600 students have found a place on the counselling list.
Officials at IIT Delhi said that a decision was made to significantly increase the total strength of students participating in counselling. Therefore, 17,452 candidates have been called for the process this year compared to about 13,000 last year.
While girls scored poorly compared to boys in the ove-rall scenario, the performance of girls from the Madras zone was the best among all zones in the country. In total, 880 girls qualified to the merit list from this zone out of the total of 2,886.