Hyderabad: The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments are engaged in a fresh tussle for 15 per cent open quota seats in Eamcet this year. These seats are referred to as “unreserved quota”, which has been in force since Eamcet was introduced in undivided AP in the mid-1980s.
 
According to the AP Reorganisation Act-2014, 15 per cent seats in all medical, dental, engineering and pharmacy colleges have to be offered to students in both states based on Eamcet merit irrespective of their nativity.
 
However, in the recent Intermediate second year results, the AP students recorded 72 per cent pass, which is 11 per cent more than TS. This is creating apprehensions that a majority of the 15 per cent seats in top colleges in TS would be bagged by AP students.
 
To beat this, the TS government is planning to adopt “normalisation method” for AP marks to ensure more seat for TS students along the lines of JEE (Main), wherein the 10+2 marks across all the boards in the country are being normalised to ensure a level-playing field for all students, while giving 40 per cent weightage to determine JEE (Main) ranks.  However, the AP government is opposing this on the ground that any changes should be made prior to issuance of Eamcet notification.
 
Inter marks carry 25 per cent weightage in Eamcet ranks and as per information gathered by Telangana officials, less than 5 per cent of TS students would manage to secure seats under open quota when compared with Inter marks of AP students.
 
TS officials fear that AP students would bag majority of these seats which may lead to protests from TS students during counselling. Junior lecturers have already taken up the issue with Deputy CM holding the education portfolio Kadiam Srihari.
 
“This year, AP has recorded over 72 per cent results against 61 per cent results of TS. This has been creating doubts over the genuiness of results among TS officials, who are seeking normalisation to do justice to both AP and TS students. The issue has been referred to CM,” said Mr Srihari.
 
TS to protect AP centres:
 
Sources have confirmed that the Telangana government will provide security for the AP Eamcet centres in Hyderabad. On Thursday, Andhra Pradesh HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao had approached Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, seeking his direction to the TS police to provide security to AP Eamcet centres and strong rooms.
 
The AP government is planning to conduct its Eamcet in Hyderabad in about 40 to 50 centres. The state had sought the TS government’s permission for this purpose and the latter had responded in the affirmative.
 
But the Telangana government was disinclined to take the responsibility of providing security to the test centres, movement of question papers from the strong rooms to the test centres.