Andhra Pradesh: Disabled Students Get Seats in IITs, NITs with Minister Lokesh's Initiative

A differently abled student, whose admission was denied into Chennai IIT citing some anomaly in his intermediate certificate, sought Andhra Pradesh Education Minister Nara Lokesh's intervention. The Minister immediately instructed the concerned officials, which eventually helped about 25 disabled students to get seats in IITs and NITs.

Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh) : About 25 disabled students got seats in IITs and NITs, with the initiative of Education Minister Lokesh. Maruti Prithvi Satyadev from Vijayawada secured 170th rank in the JEE Advanced examination conducted this year in the differently abled quota (PHC). But he had a problem in uploading his intermediate board certificate. According to the rank, Satyadev got a seat in Chennai IIT. Intermediate Boards are issuing only 'E' in the certificate in respect of exempted subject to disabled students.

As part of the document verification process, when he uploaded the intermediate certificate, they informed him that there were only 4 subjects in the memo, Maths-A and Maths-B were considered as one subject, and therefore the intermediate document would not be accepted. When Satyadev approached IIT Madras about this, they said that they will give admission to the college only if they have a certain numerical value in place of 'E' in the certificate for the second language subject.

With this, Satyadev informed Minister Lokesh about the problem on June 22 through WhatsApp. Lokesh, who responded immediately, issued instructions to the higher authorities to take necessary steps to ensure that no injustice is done to the students under any circumstances. Nara Lokesh directed the officials to release a special GO to solve the problem of disabled students in the inter marks list.

At a programme at his residence in Undavalli, Lokesh congratulated the disabled students who got seats through the government's initiative.

As per AP Intermediate Board Rules, one of the two language subjects is exempted for disabled students. A list of marks is issued stating 'E (Exemption)' in respect of that subject. This year, IIT Madras, which is supervised by Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JOSAA) counselling, has changed the rules. It has been clarified that a memo with marks related to 5 subjects should be given as minimum qualification in Inter.

As the AP Inter Board did not give it, many disabled students lost opportunities in national educational institutions. Finally, with the initiative of Lokesh, the disabled people got seats.

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