Engineering college aspirant Rajeev Kumar was relieved on Wednesday to find filling in his choice of branch and institute on the Joint Seat Allocation Authority website was an easy task.

The online choice filling exercise for the IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and government-funded technical institutes started on Wednesday. Several students made a beeline for NIT-Patna where a help centre has been set up to guide the students in making the best choice for themselves. The process would continue till July 5.

Rajeev, who studied at DN College in Masaurhi, around 35km south of Patna, was one of the aspirants who benefited from NIT help centre. It is being headed by senior NIT-Patna teacher S.K. Verma. Deputy in-charge Prakash Chandra, Rajeev Mandal, Anupam Das and A.N. Sinha are assisting Verma in the work.

Chandra said: "The help centre aims to guide the students in making online registration for choice filling of institutes and engineering branches for free."

He added that many students complained about private cyber café owners demanding around Rs 5,000-6,000 for the online registration process.

Saurav Raj, who secured JEE-Advanced rank 137 in the persons with disabilities category, said: "On Tuesday, I visited a cyber café in the Bazaar samiti area and the owner demanded Rs 3,000 from me to make online choice filling with a promise that I will get good engineering branches at any of the IITs."

The process was absolutely smooth at NIT-Patna .

Rajeev, who has ranked in the 4000s in the JEE Mains, said: "I found the process extremely easy. The faculty members guided me through the exercise. They told me where to give the password, my Mains roll number and also advised me which branch was my best option."

The Joint Seat Allocation Authority and Central Seat Allocation Board have set up 44 such centres across the country, with seven help centres in IITs and remaining in select NITs, IIITs and government-funded technical institutions.

One who has cleared JEE Mains has 367 options (engineering branches) in 68 NITs, IIITs and government-funded technical institutions to choose from. A student who has cracked JEE Advanced gets to choose from 548 options (engin eering) in 68 institutions, including 19 IITs and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.