IITs take their 'woe' to PMO

Want new admission test after 2014 or later

 A delegation of IIT Faculty federation, who are opposing the government’s ‘one nation, one examination’ proposal for admission into Central funded engineering colleges, including Indian Institutes of Technology, on Thursday placed their concerns before the Prime Minister’s Office.

“We are encouraged by the meeting and are hopeful of a positive outcome,” secretary of All India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIITFF) A K Mittal said after the meeting here.

After hearing the delegation, PM’s advisor TKA Nair assured that their concerns would be placed before Manmohan Singh and the Human Resource Development Ministry, a delegation member said.

In a statement later, the AIIITFF demanded that since the new CET was decided upon without proper consultation process, each IIT should be given the choice of accepting the proposed test as it is or with specific conditions or riders or reject it and have its own admission processes.

It said that the existing test pattern for IITs and other engineering colleges like JEE and AIEEE should continue at least till 2013 and any changes in the test format should be introduced only from 2014 or later.

   The federation insisted that board performance should be used as cut-off only, instead of giving weightage to it after a process of normalisation as has been proposed under the proposed common entrance test.

“Since there is really no fair basis for board normalisation, do not include directly the board performance in merit list preparation. If at all it is to be considered, then give only small weightage (may be 10 per cent) to start with and then gradually increase it over five years to a maximum limit of 30 per cent,” the statement said.

The IITs advance test should be subjective type just for the candidates aspiring to join the IITs. “This test will be held on a day different from the main test and will be administered to only shortlisted candidates from the main test by IITs only,” the federation said.