By NewsGram Staff Writer

Due to a significant number of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) students going empty, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have decided to bring their cut-off scores down. On Friday, IITs revised the qualifying marks for ST category in the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE). This exam is conducted every year for admissions into the tech colleges.

Earlier, the aggregate marks for ST students was 177 (35%) out of 504 which has been reportedly brought down. Now, with the qualifying marks being reduced, students belonging to the ST category are required to score 124 (24.5%) out of 504 to qualify for admission to the IITs. Subsequently, the cut-off percentage for each subject has also been reduced to 7% from the earlier 10%.

In addition, the IITs have reduced the qualifying marks for all the categories. The minimum percentage of marks required for students in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category is 6.30%, and for SC and ST candidates it is just 3.5%.

"There weren't enough ST students who had qualified. Although we now have more ST students than seats, not everyone may take admission. They may not be happy with the IIT or the stream," an official source told The Economic Times.

Since the time that the Joint Entrance Exam was made as a "two-tier" qualifying test, it is the first time that the cutoff score has been revised down to 30%. Also, students who attain the minimum qualifying marks in the aggregate cut-off list as well as the subject-wise cut-off will appear in the rank list.

"We have revised the marks based on the performance of all those who took the JEE (advanced)," said the organizing chairman of JEE 2015. The engineering colleges had announced a "higher cut-off" on June 3. The IITs will announce the rank list on June 25.