IIT-JEE : Counselling online this time

About 4.72 lakh students across the country will appear for the IIT-JEE 2010 being held on Sunday, 11th April for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology and other prestigious institutes. Prof T S Natarajan, Organising Chairman, JEE 2010, told PTI that an average of 60,000-80,000 students were expected to appear in seven IIT zones in the country for 10,000 seats in 15 IITs, IT-BHU and ISM, Dhanbad. Counselling for General Category students will be held online this year, giving candidates and authorities relief from crowded campuses during admission.

For others like OBCs, the counselling will be held in the campuses to verify certificates and veracity of claims (regarding reservation benefits), he said. "There will be two question papers, each of three hours duration (9am-12 noon and 2-5 pm). Both the question papers will consist of three separate sections on Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics," he said.

There could be slight variations every year in the question pattern and "one cannot predict" on it, Prof Natarajan added. Besides the present overseas Centre in Dubai, efforts to establish a similar one in Singapore "had not fructified so far since it requires a lot of spadework", he said.