Online admissions for BE, B Tech and B.Arch courses had commenced on July 26. Higher Education Deputy Director and Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA 2021) in-charge D Purusothaman told DT Next that anticipating the implementation of the quota for government school students in engineering admissions this year, applicants were asked to enter school category while registering so that the list of government school students could be taken separately.

After the government said it was accepting the recommendation of the quota put forth by the committee constituted to look into the matter, the number of applicants rose substantially, the official said.

“Usually, a little over 10,000 enrolments are expected every day. However, on the next day that the reservation was announced, about 20,000 applications were registered,” he said. Also, a day ahead of the announcement (August 3), the number of students registered was 1.04 lakh of whom 74,309 candidates made the payment. As on Tuesday, around 1.40 lakh students have enrolled and more than one lakh have made the payment, he added.

The last date of application is August 24. Noting that the total number of students registering last year for engineering courses was about 1.38 lakh, the official said enrolments were expected to cross 1.5 lakh this year and pointed out that two more weeks were left for the deadline.

Purusothaman added that if the government issued order on the reservation or published it in the gazette, the rank list would be prepared accordingly. “The 7.5% horizontal quota will help more than 14,000 students from government schools to get engineering admission. However, the rank list will be prepared based on the marks they have obtained,” he added.