Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has tweeted and confirmed that NITs and CFTIs have also removed the minimum marks requirement in 10+2 for admission. Few days back, IITs made the same announcement. This has been done due to the prevailing condition of COVID-19. He made this announcement today, on July 23, 2020.
For admission in the IITs, NITs, and CFTis, the candidates need 75% at least for admission and must also have JEE Main / Advanced scores. However, now candidates need only to pass their 10+2 exam as per the passing criteria of their respective boards for admission. The minimum 75% marks are no more a bar this year neither the students need to be in the top 20 percentile of their respective boards.
The admission criteria have been changed only for this year. To take admission in the IITs candidates thus need to pass their 10+2 exam and qualify the JEE Advanced 2020 exam. For admission in the NITs and CFTIs, candidates need to qualify 10+2 and JEE Main 2020.
He added to his tweet that “JEE Main 2020 qualified candidates will now only need to obtain a passing certificate in class XII examination irrespective of the marks obtained.”

On July 17, 2020, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank tweeted making the same announcement for the IITs. In that tweet, he quoted that “Due to the partial cancellation of Class XII exams by several boards, Joint Admission Board (JAB) has decided to relax eligibility criteria for JEE (Advanced) 2020 qualified candidates”.
Note that the changes in the admission criteria are only for B.Tech courses. For admission in B.Arch candidates need 50% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, and also 50% marks in aggregate of the qualifying examination. For B.Plan admission candidates should have passed the qualifying examination with 50 % marks in Mathematics and 50% marks in aggregate of the qualifying examination.
This year the 10+2 result for most of the boards have been announced based on special evaluation process. This ha been done as many exams of the class 12 candidate were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year for JEE Advanced 2020, 2.5 lakh JEE Main candidates will be shortlisted. These candidates have to qualify JEE Advanced 2020 for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology. JEE Advanced 2020 will be held on September 26, 2020. The exam will be held in CBT mode in India and some outside centers.
For NITs and CFTIs, candidates have to qualify JEE Main 2020 which will be held in the CBT mode in and outside India centers from September 1 to 6, 2020.
COVID-19 situation in the nation have affected the 2 most popular engineering entrance exam of the nation. Both the exams have been postponed twice.
Other than the minimum marks for admission in the IITs, NITs, and CFTIs, all other eligibility criteria for admission will be the same. The eligibility criteria are specific to each of the institutes. Admission will be done via centralised counselling called JoSAA.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are prestigious institutes for various undergraduate, postgraduate courses and research. They have been given the status of Institute of National Importance. Currently, there are 23 IITs in India.
The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are autonomous public technical and research universities. They are also Institutes of National Importance. There are 31 NITs in India.
National institutes or central institutes are institutes established by the Government of India and supported by national agencies are called centrally-funded institutes (CFTIs). Some of them are Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), etc.