JEE Advanced 2018: New merit list to be issued to fill all vacancies in reserved category
In its notice, the ministry said that it is the 'policy of the Government of India that all the reservation category seats in all disciplines are filled and no vacant seat is left after counselling for admission in IITs'.
"It is therefore requested to ensure that a list of candidates, twice the number of seats in each discipline and category is released, strictly as per merit, prior to starting the choice filling through JoSAA," the notice read.
Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar also tweeted about the matter. "Responding to requests from students & IIT Community & to proactively ensure that all reservation seats are duly filled, I have directed @IITKanpur conducting JEE (advanced) to make available candidates, strictly as per merit, twice the number of seats in each category. .If necessary by releasing a supplementary list. (sic)."
The JEE results were announced on Sunday morning, but now with the new ruling, it could mean that more students can enter IIT.
A total of of 1,55,158 candidates appeared in both papers 1 and 2 in JEE (Advanced) 2018. Of this, 18138 candidates have qualified the exam i.e., they scored above the cut?offs required for qualification. This is more than 1.6 times the number of seats that are being offered. The number of students qualifying the exams has seen a huge dip from 2017 when over 50,000 students had made the cut. The dip is being attributed to the fact that there were no bonus marks awarded to students this year unlike the last few years.