Board delay for IIT test toppers

Most of the 14,000-odd students who have cleared the IIT entrance exam and been invited for counselling still don’t know if they are eligible for admission at all.

Under new rules introduced this year, students are eligible for undergraduate IIT seats only if they rank within the top 20 percentile from their board in their respective social category — general, Other Backward Classes, Dalit or tribal.

But 25 of India’s 29 higher secondary boards are still to specify the category-wise cut-off marks for their students.

Earlier, the eligibility criterion was 60 per cent marks in the Class XII board exam for general and Other Backward Classes candidates and 50 per cent for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

All 29 boards have published their Class XII results. What they have not done is calculate the cut-offs and send the data to the Council of Boards of School Education to be relayed to the IITs.

“We have called the students for the first round of counselling on July 2 and 3. We hope the council will provide the data before counselling starts,” IIT-JEE (Advanced) chairman H.C. Gupta told The Telegraph.

He said the first phase of admissions would be held between July 4 and 8. The IITs will verify each candidate’s percentile rank before granting a seat.

A Council of Boards of School Education official said the Central Board of Secondary Education and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination had announced their category-wise cut-offs. So had the Class XII boards of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

“We are waiting for the data from the other boards,” the official said.

The top 1.5 lakh-odd performers in the JEE Main had taken the JEE Advanced test. Candidates will be admitted on the basis of their JEE Advanced performance provided they meet the eligibility cut-off.

Some 14,336 candidates have been called for counselling for 9,867 seats in the 16 IITs and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. If any seats remain vacant after the first phase of admissions, two more rounds of counselling and admission can be held.

The cut-off for the common merit list is 156 out of the total 360 marks in the JEE Advanced. The cut-off for the Other Backward Classes is 113 and that for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is 63.

An IIT teacher said some meritorious candidates might lose their chance of admission after the percentile data are calculated.

“I have examined last year’s admission data for IIT Kanpur. If a 20 percentile cut-off had been made compulsory last year, six students would not have secured admission,” the teacher said.

“The situation would have been similar in the other IITs. So, a high rank on the merit list may not ensure admission for many students this year.”

Gupta said every IIT would verify a candidate’s caste certificate, signature and photograph. Two students were earlier accused of securing admission on the strength of forged documents last year, one to an IIT and the other to the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.