Chennai: Even after taking equal footing and proving themselves in almost every sphere, girls in Tamil Nadu are restrained from joining B E Marine Engineering and B E Mining Engineering courses. The state government has barred admission of girl students to BE marine engineering course offered by four self-financing engineering colleges affiliated to four prestigious Anna universities across Tamil Nadu, on the basis of an October 2002 Director General Of Shipping notification that is no more in force.
However, P Vijayan, Vice Chancellor, Indian Maritime University, a Central university under the shipping ministry, said this year seven girl students had been admitted to the course for which counselling was held a week ago. But Anna University (Chennai) Vice-Chancellor P Mannar Jawahar cited the notification (No 11, TR (21)/97 dated October 3, 2002), issued by the Director General Of Shipping and said, that as per that notification Indian male candidates alone are eligible to join the marine engineering programme. Consequent to this situation, only boys who are attending the ongoing single window counselling for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA 2009), are being allowed to join marine or mining engineering courses. Moreover, this has been the case in the previous years too.
As per the sources, the scenario is different in Mumbai, as two years back the government had given incentives to girl students to enter the shipping sector. Ashima Gupta, Deputy Director General of Shipping (training) in Mumbai, said that girls had been admitted even in well-known T S Chanakya and Marine Engineering Research Institutes in Mumbai, as well as in Kolkata. She also added that an advisory has also been issued (DGS Order No.2 of 2007) to private institutions requesting them to give 50% concession in fees to girl students in pre-sea courses.
