Hi, to get into NITs or IITs you need to at least qualify the exam. However, you can apply to other private and government colleges. You can also apply for your state level CET to get admissions. Those exams are comparatively easy. Below is the link for you to predict which college you can get into. Hope it helps.

https://engineering.careers360.com/jee-main-college-predictor?utm_source=qna&utm_medium=jee_cp

Hello Aspirant! Yes, you can apply for the JOSAA counselling even if you got 40.4 percentile in JEE Mains. Anyone can participate in the counselling no matter whatever marks or percentile they got. There no restrictions for participating in the JOSAA counselling.
But for you, I should tell you that it's of no use for you to participate in the counselling as you won't be getting any colleges through it. It's impossible for a candidate with 40 percentile to get a college through JOSAA. You may try improving your marks the upcoming year for having better chances of securing a college.
All the Best!

Hello

Yes, irrespective of your percentile in jee main, you are eligible for josaa counselling.

This is because,

To be eligible for josaa counselling, it is not mandatory to be qualify jee main, qualifying jee main cut off percentile is mandatory only to be eligible for jee advanced.

Minimum percentile in jee main 2021 to qualify it to  be eligible for jee advanced 2021 for different categories was :-

--------) general :-87.8992241 percentile

--------) EWS:- 66.2214845 percentile

--------) OBC-NCL :- 68.0234447 percentile

--------) SC :- 46.8825338 percentile

--------) ST:- 34.6728999 percentile

--------) PWD :- 0.0096375 percentile

You can check the same at our page the link is provided below

https://engineering.careers360.com/articles/jee-main-cutoff

To help you have a personalised report on your chances to get a college, we have college predictor which will give you complete list of colleges which you can get on the basis of the category you belong to,  your home state, your gender etc, the link for  jee main college predictor is provided below

https://engineering.careers360.com/jee-main-college-predictor?icn=QnA&ici=qna_answer

For Josaa counselling, once it gets started, you will have to go through following steps to participate

---------) Registration :- First of all you will have to visit the josaa official website and then register with the help of your roll number and password .

---------) Choice filling:-You will have to fill the colleges and courses in order of your preferences

---------) Choice locking:-Then you need to lock the colleges you selected

---------) Mock seat allotment:- To help you understand the colleges in which you have chances ,mock seat allotment is conducted before final choice filling and locking

---------) Seat allotment result:- then on the basis of your rank seat allotment takes place.

---------) seat acceptance fees payment :- If you get a seat then you have to download seat allotment letter and then you have to pay 35,000 rupees  as your seat acceptance fees ( it's Rs15,000 if you are from reserved category)

---------) Reporting the report centre :- You have to report to the reporting centre to get your documents verified. You need to carry your original documents along with 2 copies of xerox of each.

---------) admission confirmation :- Finally you have to report to the alloted college  by at least the time of last date of reporting for the college mentioned on seat allotment letter for admission confirmation.

Thankyou