The admission counselling for IITs and other centrally run engineering institutes may get more student-friendly this year in order to help applicants avoid unintentional mistakes. Last year, 18-year-old Sidhanta Batra from Agra, who had secured an All India Rank of 270 in JEE Advanced, had lost a seat in IIT Bombay over a wrong click during online counselling. 

The decision to make the process friendlier for students was made by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA), the panel responsible for admission counselling. “Everyone is new to online counselling,” said an official, adding that online process began only from 2020, in view of Covid-19.

JoSAA officials said that two rounds of mock counselling are also being organised this year before the six rounds of actual counselling. And after every round, the students will have the option to seek clarifications from experts. The mock rounds will begin on Oct 21 and the admission process in these institutes is set to be completed by Nov 20. The Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) results were declared last week.

Officials said that a special drive to fill vacancies will be carried out after six rounds. For Batra, the student from Agra, it took the Supreme Court’s intervention for a seat to be added to IIT Bombay to accommodate him under special circumstances.