Students who do not reside in Maharashtra will be eligible for only 15% of seats in engineering, MBA and pharmacy courses in the state from this academic year.
Students who do not reside in Maharashtra will be eligible for only 15% of seats in engineering, MBA and pharmacy courses in the state from this academic year. Students applying for admissions in any of these professional courses will have to prove they are domicile residents of the state. Last year, there was stiff opposition to the policy introduced by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) from students and also by some political parties.
The decision taken by the state’s higher and technical education department was put on stay for a year.
Last year, the state had more than 85,000 seats in engineering courses across the state. With new engineering colleges coming up every year in the state, the numbers of seats are likely to go up this year. However, only 15% of these seats — about 12,750 — will be available for students from outside the state.
These seats are usually filled up using the scores for All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE). While 65% seats will be reserved for candidates from the state, the rest 20% will be filled by the college managements, claimed an official from DTE. For management colleges, there over 35,000 seats available in the city’s management colleges, out of which 65% seats will be for candidates residing in Maharashtra.
“We had announced the rule in February last year. However, students were unaware about it. It takes time to get a domicile certificate made from the court. Several students learnt about it at the last moment and therefore were unable to procure them. Therefore, the higher education ministry had agreed to put the decision on hold for a year. Students this year are expected to prepare the required documents much in advance,” said SK Mahajan, director, DTE.
According to Mahajan, the domicile is made mandatory only to ensure that students have an address proof to substantiate their claim, and not for any political reason.
This year, the Maharashtra health and technical common entrance test (MHT-CET) will be conducted in the month of May.
Thereafter, the common admission process (CAP) rounds will begin. Students participating in the CAP rounds will need to procure domicile certificates. The same applies to MBA and pharmacy courses as well. The state government made domicile certificates mandatory for admissions to professional courses last year.
Though political parties like the Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena were in favour of making domicile mandatory as it would ensure more local candidates, there was opposition from other political parties and also from the students.
For medical courses, however, if the student has cleared Std X and XII from the Maharashtra board, he need not procure a domicile certificate. If the student has not appeared for his board exams from the state, then the domicile of the parents will be required, said an official from the Directorate of Medical Education and Research.
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