In the past, fifty percent of the seats in each REC was for students from the State where the REC was located. The remaining half of the seats in that REC was filled by students from other States.
The premier engineering colleges of India draw largely from an all-India pool of students, irrespective of States. Statewise representation is not a factor although this is the fundamental structure of the Indian Union. But statewise representation needs to be implemented in admissions to IITs and NITs so as to sync with the general structure of the Indian Union that the Constitution held to be key to promoting national integration and unity. These will address regional imbalances too.
In the past, there were 17 RECs (Regional Engg Colleges). Many of the bigger States had their own REC and the smaller ones were grouped and allotted one REC.
Fifty percent of the seats in each REC was for students from the State where the REC was located. The remaining half of the seats in that REC was filled by students from other States.
A seat matrix was followed to implement this in such a way that if an REC had 100 seats, 50 seats would be filled by students from that State and 50 students from that State would be allotted seats in other RECs. This process was designed to give an opportunity for each State to grow educationally.
In this process, in every REC, students from each State, or region, studied, although half the students were from the home State where the REC was situated. This ensured that the student population was always diverse and representative, promoting national integration.
By 2005, when the RECs were converted to National Institutes of Technology (NIT), this admission process was changed. Half the seats in an NIT were filled by students from the home State or region where the NIT was situated. But half the seats were filled from a common all-India pool based on merit and reservation. The purported reason given behind admitting half the students on a “general, competitive basis” was that students from State having more score in their competitive exams were being denied seats in NITs that were next only to the IITs.
But this process led to skews among States in terms of the number of students from that State studying in RECs, now renamed as National Institutes of Technology (NIT), outside their State. The student population in RECs became unrepresentative. For this reason, the old admission process should be restored in NITs and, for the same reason, introduced in IITs also.
In the past, only five IITs were there. Hence admission to the IITs was based on an all-India ranking. There were no Statewise quotas.
Today, there are 23 IITs, spread across the nation. If admission in IITs are also followed similar to that RECs, then every State will benefit and grow together academically. For example, students from Nagaland may be able to study in an IIT located nearby.
At present about 12 lakh students appear for main JEE and about 2.5 lakh are selected to write Advanced JEE for about 14,000 seats in the IITs.
The present admission process for IITs should change to follow the old REC pattern of admissions. The student of one State would then only compete with students from his or her State. The pressure of a rat race will reduce too.
(M. Chidambaram is a retired professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras. He has also served as Director of NIT – Trichy)
Published – July 03, 2025 05:06 pm IST
