A senior official from the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) told DT Next on Saturday that so far, a total of 1,05,089 applications were received and of them 79,769 candidates paid registration fees till Friday night.

Stating that on Day One, a total of 23,583 applications were received, he said “the figure doubled the next day itself and July 22 it crossed the 90,000 mark. Claiming that it was expected to cross 1.5 lakh applications against last year’s 1.3 lakh, the official said of the total applicants more than 90% were from Tamil Nadu.

The official further noted that since this year various competitive exams like JEE and NEET were yet to be held a greater number of candidates have registered with DOTE to play it safe.

He said that since mark sheets were not distributed to the Class 12 State Board students, the uploading of documents including school transfer certificate will begin only from July 31 and go on until August 20. Stating that assigning random numbers will be done on August 21, the official said original certificate verifications will be held from August 24 till September 1 at student’s facilitation centres set up across all the districts in the State.

Pointing out that about 50 student’s facilitation centres have been set up across the State, he clarified that the number of centres will be increased as and when required.

“The publication of rank list will be on September 7 and counselling for special reservation category students will be held from September 10 to September 14,” the DOTE official said.

Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions 2019 (TNEA-2019) has been made completely online. From 2019, the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) is conducting counselling for students after Anna University refused to hold it following a row with the Higher Education Department over re-shuffling of the TNEA Committee.