The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) would begin the second round of counseling for vacant seats under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS) for J&K students from 13 August 2016.
According to a notification issued by the J&K Government’s Higher Education Department, the second round of counseling under PMSSS would be held at National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research (NITTTR), Sector-26, Chandigarh.
The candidates with merit no: 3704 to 4500 have been invited for counseling for the engineering stream while for the general stream, the candidates with merit no: 6285 upto last have been invited for counseling.
“All the eligible candidates are advised to reach the venue of the counseling on the scheduled date and time fully prepared to travel to the allotted colleges directly so as to join the institute without any delay,” the notification said.
Pertinently, as many as 3554 students from Jammu & Kashmir have secured admission in various professional and other colleges outside the State in many of the reputed institutions under the first round of counseling conducted in Srinagar and Jammu between 26 July 2016 and 3 August 2016.
“This year response to the scheme was overwhelming and large number of students were registered under the scheme and secured admission in various streams including two new streams that were introduced from this admission session viz Hotel Management and Catering Technology (HMCT) and Nursing streams,” an Education Department spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that nearly 8000 students registered themselves for counseling including 3300 in Srinagar centre and 4500 in Jammu centre. He added that in the first round of counseling 1778 seats were allotted in Engineering stream, 887 students were allotted seats in General stream and in the two new courses introduced this admission session around 300 seats were allotted to the students.
“Besides, around 600 students who had secured admission in various institutions on their own were also given benefit of the scheme through this counseling,” he said.
The spokesman said that unlike last year when only 2 seats were being allotted per college to the students under PMSSS, this year 10 seats per college have been allotted.
The spokesperson also said that for the current financial year, an amount of Rs 75 crore worth scholarships is available to J&K students under PMSSS. He said while upto Rs 30000 per annum would be available as scholarship under PMSSS for general courses, upto Rs 1.25 lakh per annum would be available for engineering courses and upto Rs 3 lakh per annum for medical/dental courses. Besides, every student would be entitled upto Rs 1 lakh per annum as maintenance charges, he said and added that the students taking admission, by virtue of their own merit, in institutions like IITs, NITs and Central Universities outside J&K are also eligible for scholarship under PMSSS.