CHENNAI: A day after the State government issued an order to implement the 10.5 per cent Vanniyar reservation in all academic courses from this year onwards, a column was added in the online admission forms, for all arts, science and engineering courses under the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission (TNEA) and Tamil Nadu Government Arts and Science College Admissions (TNGSA).
The new section, titled most backward class (V), was added to the forms on Tuesday. “Students can select the Vanniyar reservation category if required, and those students who had applied on Monday, can update the details,” said TNEA secretary T Purushothaman. The application process of admissions started on July 26, however, the admission brochures and applications to engineering, arts and science courses did not mention about the Vanniyar reservation. Later in the day, Chief Minister MK Stalin issued an order to implement the 10.5 per cent special reservation.
With the implementation of this special reservation, at least 16,000 BE and B.Tech seats; 10,000 seats in 143 government arts and science colleges, and nearly 500 seats out of the 20 per cent seats allocated to most backward castes in the existing MBBS seat matrix will be reserved for Vanniyars, said sources. A legislation was passed in February this year to provide 10.5 per cent internal reservation for Vanniyars out of the 20 per cent reservation for the most backward classes in Tamil Nadu.