No Common Counselling for IITs and NITs in 2014

There will not be common counseling for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) this year, according to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).

The possibility of whether a ‘common counselling’ can be ­implemented in 2014 was discussed at a meeting attended by representatives from the human resource development (HRD) ministry, the JEE Advanced Committee, IITs, NITs, the CBSE (which conducts JEE Main) and the National Informatics Centre (that develops the software for the counselling) last week.

However, the ministry has decided that the process for this year will be similar to that of last year’s, which means the IITs will have their own counseling rounds while NITs will hold their own separate session of counseling.

Earlier, the ministry had proposed to introduce the common counselling platform to resolve the issue of seats being left vacant in top enginnering colleges. However, IITs opposed the idea, insisting that it was too late an idea to be worked upon the common counseling. They said for the counseling to be conducted at any agency, the work needs to begin at least six months in advance.

There is, however, possibility to introduce the common counselling process next year for both the leading group of institutes, but only after feasibility study.