Saturday, June 21, 2008
Chennai: The government hopes to settle the issue of the government and management quotas in self-financing engineering colleges within the next few days, according to Higher Education Secretary K. Ganesan.

The government has proposed a ratio of 65 per cent of seats in the government quota, with the remaining 35 per sent of seats in the management quota. However, many college managements want a higher percentage within their control. Some of them have pointed to a Supreme Court judgement that would allow them control over all the seats in their colleges.


“I am holding discussions with the college management representatives and I think that it will work out soon…in a few days’ time,” Mr. Ganesan said.

Time is running short, as the counselling for government quota seats begins on July 3. In fact, Mr. Ganesan participated in the first step of the process on Friday, as the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission authorities allotted random numbers to all applicants. These numbers will be the final decider in a tie-break situation.

In fact, the government is increasing the seats under its own control this year by starting six new government engineering colleges in the State.

“We have identified temporary buildings to accommodate the colleges for this year,” said Mr. Ganesan, adding that the search is on for hostel buildings as well.

However, the biggest hunt is for faculty to teach in the new colleges. While the respective Anna Universities have issued advertisements for the new faculty, Mr. Ganesan said that existing University staff have also been offered the option to move to these new colleges.

Clarification on banks
With regard to the plan allowing first year students to pay their fees through banks, as reported in The Hindu on Friday, Mr. Ganesan clarified that the selected banks are the State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Syndicate Bank, Karur Vysya Bank and Indian Bank.