FAST FACTS

Admission criteria: Entrance Examination varies state-wise: JEE (IIT Guwahati); AIEEE (NIT, Silchar; NIT Agartala); State Common Entrance Exam (CET for Assam; CTE for Manipur, NEE for NERIST, Arunachal Pradesh)
Number of Engineering Institutes: 16
Total sanctioned intake: 3,918
Major disciplines: Electronics & Communications; Computer Science; Civil Engineering; Mechanical Engineering

Noteworthy institutions: IIT Guwahati; NIT Agartala, NIT Silchar; Assam NERIST, Itanagar; Tezpur University; NEHU..

OWING to the great need for quality technical and engineering education in the North-East (NE) region, six of the ten new National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are proposed to be established in the XI Plan. These would be set up in Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. There are two NITs in the region at Silchar and Agartala with a combined intake of 990 seats, IIT Guwahati was established in 1994 with intake of 469 which also offers a degree in Design - the only UG level engineering degree of its kind in an IIT. Assam with eight institutes accounts for more than half of the total UG intake (2068) in engineering in the Nort-East.

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Admission procedure
While the admission to UG programmes in engineering varies from State to State, within the states too, the institutes have their own exam/criteria. However, to be eligible for appearing in any of these engineering entrance exams, a candidate must be an Indian citizen, and a permanent resident of the state. She/he should have passed the Higher Secondary Examination of the State Higher Secondary Education Council, or its equivalent, usually with Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and English, securing a minimum aggregate of marks (which in most of the cases is 50% for general candidates, 45% for Schedule Castes, and 40% in the case of Schedule Tribes). Candidates from the NE region securing any of the top ten positions in the 10+2 Board/Council Examinations with a certain percentage are eligible for direct admission to the UG programme. For instance, in North Eastern Regional Institute of Science & Technology (NERIST), Itanagar, admissions are through an exam called NEE wherein 90% of the seats are filled by candidates from eight NE states and remaining 10% from the rest of India.