MNNIT in key role in NITs, IIITs counselling, admissions this year

Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT)-Allahabad will play a key role in counseling and admission to undergraduate degree programmes of engineering, technology, and architecture including BTech courses in all NITs, IIITs and other government-funded institutions of the country based on JEE (Main) scores this year.

MNNIT director Prof Rajeev Tripathi has been appointed chairman of the Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB) by the union ministry of education.

As a result, a dedicated CSAB headquarters will soon become functional at MNNIT Allahabad campus with a team of institute officials and staff to shouldering the responsibilities of counselling for 2020-21.

For admissions, the Education ministry sets up a Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) to manage and regulate the joint seat allocation for admissions to participating institutes for each academic year. Last year this included 23 IITs, 31 NITs, 25 IIITs, and 28 other-government funded technical institutes (Other-GFTIs). Admission to all the academic programs offered by these Institutes will be made through a single platform.

The CSAB simultaneously undertakes counselling for admission to NITs, IIITs, and other JEE participating institutes, and based on this the candidates need to report to the allotted institutes and take admission.

However, after it, when still seats remain vacant, the CSAB then conducts a special round of counselling for remaining seats. For the close work that CSAB does along with JoSAA in counselling and admissions, the chairman of CSAB is also a member of JoSAA, inform officials.

The core committee of CSAB has a representative of Education ministry, directors of four NITs, and one IIIT also as members.

“All though it is the first time MNNIT is shouldering the responsibility of CSAB, it was the institute that had kick-started the online counselling process for admissions in coordination with National Informatics Centre (NIC). It handled the role of CSAB’s former version of CCB or Central Counselling Board in 2002 and 2003 with success. In 2004 the responsibility was given to Delhi College of Engineering before the task against being entrusted to MNNIT in 2008. However, this time this responsibility has come to MNNIT after a gap of 12 years now,” shared MNNIT director, Prof Rajeev Tripathi.

Last year, the responsibility of CSAB was handled by NIT-Trichy, he added.

Prof Tripathi said that JEE (Advanced) is scheduled to be held on September 27 and after its result declaration, the process of online registration and choice locking for admissions will kick start from October 6 and continue till October 16.

The first round of seat allotment would then take place on October 17. “In these tough times of Covid-19 pandemic, to maintain social distancing, physical reporting has been eliminated. Due to this, radical change has been inducted in business rules in terms of online reporting, online document verification, and online admission, keeping the safety of the aspirants and stakeholders on priority,” he said.

Some of the important features of the seat allocation process for admission through JoSAA-2020 includes: Seat allocation process this year would involve six normal rounds, to be conducted by JoSAA-2020 for admission to IITs and NIT+ system, which will be followed by two special vacant seats filling rounds, to be conducted by CSAB– 2020, only for ‘NIT+ system’.