Several engineering aspirants have raised objections over the provisional merit list declared by the directorate of technical education (DTE) for admission in first year engineering courses in Maharashtra. The composite score formula announced by the DTE 10 days ago is at the centre of controversy with many CBSE and ISC board candidates blaming DTE for giving undue advantage to the state board candidates through a "discriminatory" composite score formula.

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They allege that despite scoring more in class12 exams as compared to HSC candidates, they have been ranked much lower than them. For the first time, DTE has prepared the merit list on the basis of JEE (main) score and class 12 marks (physics, chemistry and maths), giving them equal weightage. However, instead of marks, percentiles of both the scores (which give relative position of the candidate in the given board) have been used in the calculation, which throws a difference of 10-20% in the percentiles, despite a similar score in class 12.

"Because of more number of high scorers in the central boards, we have got lower percentiles than the HSC boards where high scorers are less," said a CBSE candidate. "This is a deliberate attempt to give an undue advantage to the state board candidates," alleges another candidate.

The aggrieved candidates have now approached the DTE with the written complaints requesting them to sort out the issue at the earliest, in addition to making amends in the provisional merit list which was declared July 5 and revise the final merit list accordingly. The DTE is set to declare the final merit list on July 9 at 5pm based on which seat allocation would be conducted across nearly 360 colleges.

"We have received some complaints about the composite score formula, however, we are unable to share the number at this point. The composite score formula was taken from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and the state has approved it," said SK Mahajan, director of DTE.

When asked if DTE can address the issue, Mahajan said, "I can't comment on this at this point of time. We are still receiving grievances. We will discuss the matter only tomorrow."Figure it outNumber of seats available up for grabs: 1.55 lakhNumber of aspirants: 1.06 lakh

Composite formula1) JEE percentile (Jo) = Number of students who scored marks less than the candidate/ Total number of students appeared for the JEE (Main) 2014 Paper-1 *1002) Board percentile (P)= Number of students who scored marks less than the candidate in the respective Board Exam 2014/ Total number of students appeared for the subjects Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in the respective Board Examination held in March 2014*1003) Composite Score = 0.5 x JEE Percentile (Po) + 0.5 x Board Percentile (P)