JEE Main Reservation Criteria 2024: Understanding Quotas/Reservations and Categories

An engineering aspirant’s category and the quota he or she might be eligible for plays an important role in admission to institutes that accept JEE Main scores including the NITs (National Institute of Technology), IIITs and CFTIs.

However, amidst all the confusion about the exam itself, the majority of the students are also confused about what exactly is the difference between quotas/reservations and categories, how it affects admissions and what kind of quotas and categories actually exist that an aspirant can avail.

Starting with the basics, let’s understand the difference between quota/reservation and category.

Quota/Reservation is the process of setting aside a certain percentage of seats (vacancies) in government institutes( which includes the Central Government funded institutions and State Government/State-funded institutions like IITs, NITs, IIITs etc) while categories include seats for people from certain backgrounds including the SC, ST and OBCs and are applicable to both government and private institutes.

Also Read: JEE Main 2023 January Question Paper with Solution Answer Key PDF Download

On a broader level, the quotas/reservations applicable for admissions are divided into two categories:

Home State (HS) Quota: Under the home state quota, seats are reserved for candidates based on their state of eligibility (Basically, the state where they have completed their Class 11th and 12th from). Remember, the home state quota is filled as per as aspirant’s All India Rank. Around 50% of seats are reserved for HS quota students.

Other State (OS) Quota: Under the Other State Quota, seats are reserved for candidates beyond the Home State. Around 50% of seats are reserved for OS quota students.

To make the concept clearer, here is an example:

Student X stays in Delhi and acquires a rank in JEE Mains. Since he has a domicile in Delhi, he can apply to a Delhi college through the home state quota.

Now, supposedly, he got a rank of around 1000 and NIT Delhi, in the first round, offers a computer science seat at an All India rank of 900. Since X has a home state quota, the same seat would be offered to him at a rank of 1000 or even at 2000. Thus, the student is left with two options: First - to apply through the All India route and second – to apply via the home state quota route. The choice, completely, depends on student X.

Coming to the categories, there are four broad categories:

• General Category
• Other Backward Classes (OBC) only Non-Creamy Layer candidates (whose family annual income is not more than Rs 6 lakh)
• Scheduled Castes (SC)
• Scheduled Tribes (ST)

Persons with Disability (PwD) is a sub-category under each of the above categories as well.

So this takes the total number of categories available to eight:

1. General
2. General – PwD( Persons with Disability)
3. SC(Scheduled Caste)
4. SC - PwD( Persons with Disability)
5. ST (Scheduled Tribes)
6. ST - PwD( Persons with Disability)
7. OBC (Other Backward Classes)
8. OBC - PwD( Persons with Disability)

Besides these eight categories, some colleges also accept students that come under the OBC Minority quota. While applying to any institute, please check for a specific category that might hold good for that college.

According to reports, the category-wise percentage of reservations via JEE Main is:

1. OBC (NCL): 27%
2. SC: 15%
3. ST: 7.5%
4. PwD: 5%
5. General Economically Weaker Section (EWS): 10%

However, as the official website states, the reservation of seats for JEE Main 2023 will be based on the rules of the Government of India. The applicants of some categories will be admitted to seats reserved for them under relaxed criteria for ranks under reserved categories.              

Note: The JEE Main 2023 Reservation of Seats will be only for candidates belonging to classes/castes/tribes enlisted in the respective central list released and maintained by the Indian Government.

Type of Ranks:

A candidate’s rank card displays four different kinds of ranks. For instance, if he belongs to the Scheduled Tribe, then he would have the following ranks to choose from:

1. All India Rank
2. All India SC Rank
3. State Rank
4. State SC Rank

Therefore, it all depends on the intelligence of the aspirant to apply based on his/her rank in different colleges and categories.

Reservation for women:

Every college has a 5% reservation for women. In fact, different colleges have different ways and forms of offering reservations to women.

For instance, some colleges offer relaxation to girls in terms of the percentage of marks. So, if the cut-off is somewhere around 98% for a particular seat/course, a girl can apply for the same seat at around 93%. For PwD students, the relaxation is approximately a further 5%.

Thus, a girl has the option to apply through the All India level and also through the women's quota system.

If facts are to be believed, DTU (Delhi Technological University) sometime back introduced a ‘Single Girl Child’ quota and according to the same, the institute has one seat each in all the B.Tech courses reserved for single girl children from Delhi. 

Private Universities and Quotas:

Factually, private universities/colleges do not accept any quotas and, till the third round of counseling, these institutes do not have a role to play. These colleges only appear in the spot round and extra spot round. In fact, no government institute can be part of the extra spot round but private universities/colleges. Also, these institutes have a larger number of seats as compared to government institutes and admit students at lower ranks.

However, private institutes do have to consider reserved categories. For instance, since institutes like LPU, Amity, Sharda University, etc. neither accept any sort of quota nor have a home state quota; they only accept All India Ranks (AIR). Along with AIR, they offer seats to students from ST, SC, and OBC categories.

Read More:

• JEE Main 2024 College Predictor
• JEE Main Previous Years Cutoff
• JEE Main Exam Analysis