National Institute of Technology, Patna. Telegraph picture

The National Institute of Technology would take admission of students on August 16 and 17 after technical glitches and anomalies in seat allocation delayed the commencement of the new session.

The first-year BTech classes are expected to start on August 19, a fortnight behind the schedule. Usually, the new session starts at National Institute of Technology (NIT) in the first week of August.

Sources in NIT-Patna said technical glitches in allotment of seats by Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB) delayed the admission process this year. The CSAB, constituted by the Union ministry of human resource development to facilitate allocation of seats in the engineering colleges, conducted counselling for all the NIT seats this year.

Admitting that the admission process was delayed because of the confusion in allotment of seats by the CSAB, the academic dean of NIT-Patna, U.S. Periyar, said: “The fortnight-long confusion is over. Students have been allotted seats based on the ranking prepared by the CSAB.”

He said the first-year classes are likely to start from August 19.

The total student intake in the seven branches of NIT-Patna is 616. Students taking admission to the institute from this year would get a revised syllabus. Sources said the revised curriculum would have special focus on communicative English, personality development and technological innovations.

NIT-Patna director Asok De said: “The members of the board of governors and senior teachers of the institute gave their nod to the proposal to revise the old syllabus in a recent meeting.”

New topics according to the market demand would be introduced in the course to bring the NIT-Patna syllabus on a par with IITs and other NITs, said a teacher of the institute. Economics and management ethics would be among the few papers to be added in the revised syllabus.

The admissions to the NITs was mired by large-scale merit violations and technical glitches this year. After “false” seat allotments to more than one lakh students because of technical glitch, the CSAB had to roll back its second upgradation list after large-scale merit violations surfaced.

A senior teacher of NIT-Patna said several students called for admission had to leave without their promised seats as the online system of seat allotment malfunctioned.

Several students allegedly faced problems because of technical glitches during the third round of allotment of seats in NIT-Patna from July 20 to 26. “There was a huge confusion among the aspirants,” he added.