IIT council proposes pan-India common entrance test

The council of IITs today proposed a pan-India common entrance test for admission to engineering programmes possibly from 2013.

After a meeting of the council which stretched for over five hours, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, however, said the concurrence of the Central Advisory Board of Education and state education ministers would be sought before implementing the proposals.

"We have decided there shall be one exam. Subject to the clearance of the CABE committee and subject to the clearance of the state ministers we will try and put that into operations from 2013," he told reporters in Delhi.

On the issue of hiking tuition fee as recommended by the Anil Kakodkar committee, he made it clear that "fee would remain the same at Rs50,000 per annum" but added a student, excluding STs and OBCs, would 'pay back' the amount which is the difference between the fee deposited and what the IIT spends on him.

According to Sibal, an all-India merit list will be prepared based on the combined weightage given to class XII exam and to a common test. The test will examine a students logic and non-subject matters.

He said weightage would be given to the marks obtained in class XII boards after the results are equalised for which Indian Statistical Institute will put in place a mathematical formula for equalisation.

The minister said the council was seized of the problems that states like Andhra Pradesh faced while implementing the equalisation procedure.