The process of allotting seats under the reserved quota of the RTE Act took place here on Wednesday through the online lottery system for the first time in the State.
Justice Y Bhaskar Rao, Lokyukta, inaugurated the online system in the presence of Primary and Secondary Education Minister Kimmane Ratnakar and Education department officials.
Mohammed Mohsin, Commisioner for Public Instruction, said that the school education department received around 3.89 lakh applications of which 2,57, 942 will be eligible for allotments.
As many as 1,11,329 seats are available in 11,202 schools this year, he added. Of these as many as 57,797 seats are for class I and 53,532 seats are for UKG.
The online lottery seat allotment system involves three processes - cleansing and updating process that weeds out duplicate and double forms from the database, randomisation process that generates a unique ID for eligible candidates.
Finally the lottery number ranking process assigns lottery numbers to applicants based on the unique ID. The system then allots seats based on the lottery numbers of candidates, priority mentioned and the reservation claimed such as ST, SC or OBC. Vacant seats in each category will be transferred to the next category, said Mohsin.
Candidates from weaker sections of the society such as orphans, transgenders, HIV patients, children with special needs, migrant children, streetchildren will be given seats directly without any lottery process.
There is no income limit for SC, ST, Category 1 whereas for OBC candidates, the income limit has been divided in three slabs namely - Rs one lakh and below, Rs one lakh to two lakh, above Rs two lakh to 3.5 lakh.
As many as 50,175 applications have been received from SC candidates for 34,074 seats. So far as ST candidates are concerned, 13,262 applications have been received for 7,901 seats. Lastly, for OBC as many as 1,72,527 applications have been received for 69, 354 seats.
Speaking at the programme, Rao said that the Lokayukta would be watching the entire process closely for any instances of corruption.
“All those education officers and schools who are either indulging or encouraging corruption will not be spared. The government has taken a good step to eradicate corruption,” he said.
He highlighted the need to bring tribal children, who could not apply through online means, into the fold of education. There are around 42 lakhs such tribals in need of education , he added.
