Maharashtra sets up panel to factor Class 12 marks in engineering admissions

The committee will be headed by Prof. Ravindra Kulkarni, vice-chancellor of Mumbai University who also chairs Maharashtra State Academic and Research Council.

The Maharashtra government on Thursday set up a committee to recommend a framework for factoring Class 12 marks into admissions for undergraduate engineering and pharmacy programmes, rather than relying solely on marks from the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET).

The decision comes against the backdrop of repeated allegations of malpractice in the entrance exam.

“An expert committee is hereby constituted as follows to formulate a policy for preparing the merit list for admission to undergraduate professional courses in Engineering and Pharmacy, by taking into consideration the MHT-CET percentile and the percentage of marks obtained in the Class 12 examination,” the state’s Higher and Technical Education Department said in a government order.

The committee will be headed by Prof. Ravindra D. Kulkarni, the vice-chancellor of Mumbai University who also chairs the Maharashtra State Academic and Research Council.

The committee will also have vice-chancellors of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University and COEP Technological University (Pune) as members, along with the director of higher education department. The director of technical education department will serve as member-secretary.