New Delhi, June 26: The Centre today told states opposed to a controversial change in admission policy for National Institutes of Technology (NITs) it couldn’t go back on its decision to admit 50 per cent students on merit.

But the HRD ministry has offered to raise the number of seats offered to mitigate the fear among some states about a decline in seats for their students.

At a meeting with state technical education secretaries today, HRD officials refused to revert to the admission policy adopted by NITs till last year, ministry sources said.

The earlier policy, HRD officials told their state counterparts, had led to a rush to states with poorer academic records, only to benefit from “geographical reservation”.

The chief ministers of 13 states and Union territories had written to HRD minister Arjun Singh and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, calling the policy, unveiled on June 9, discriminatory against educationally backward states.

Although today’s meeting was called in response to those letters, the Centre had made up its mind not to withdraw the policy. The Telegraph had yesterday reported that the ministry was firm in its resolve to implement the guidelines despite opposition from the states.

Till 2007, each of India’s 20 NITs — upgraded from the status of regional engineering colleges (RECs) in 2002 — was allowed to reserve 50 per cent seats for students from the state in which they were based. The remaining 50 per cent formed part of a central “pool” which, till now, had been filled on the basis of proportional representation — a state where the NIT offered more seats got greater representation in other NITs.