The government has clarified that among the Class XII pass-outs who will be admitted in engineering courses without cracking any test, preference would be given to those who have appeared in the JEE and the AIEEE.

The clarification follows Wednesday’s announcement of the higher education department that allowed admission to students whose names did not figure on the JEE merit list.

Officials said the admission norm was relaxed to ensure that all seats in the 70-odd private engineering colleges in the state were filled up. Last year, 6,500 seats remained vacant despite 80,000 names on the JEE merit list.

“Wednesday’s announcement was confusing as it did not clearly mention who would be considered for the vacant seats in engineering colleges,” said a higher education official.

This year, the JEE board has released a merit list with 90,000 names to fill up the 30,000-odd engineering seats. Counselling begins on July 11.

Thursday’s clarification mentions that in case the seats are not filled up by those figuring on the JEE merit list or those who have cracked the Joint Entrance Lateral Entry Test (JELET), colleges would take in students with the following order of preference: those who have taken JEE but haven’t figured on the merit list and those who have taken the AIEEE.

“It is only after these two categories of students that the colleges will consider other pass-outs — those with 50 per cent marks in physics, chemistry and mathematics together,” said an official of the higher education department. “The 50 per cent aggregate in Higher Secondary or equivalent examination is applicable for all candidates.”

The official said the colleges would draw up the list on the basis of merit from the pool of applicants to fill up the seats that will lie vacant after the first round of counselling.

“The Vacant seats will be first offered to the diploma engineers and science graduates who have cleared the JELET,” said a board official.

The JELET route has been there for several years but this is the first time that the government has thrown open engineering college admissions to students who haven’t figured on the merit list of JEE or any admission test.