HYDERABAD: The State's show at the IIT-JEE may not be up to the expectations this year due to multiple factors, including the Telangana and united State agitations that robbed precious preparation days, and AP-IIITs that took away the cream of candidates.

Last year, State students secured nearly 25 per cent of the 6,200-odd seats in the IITs and it has been the trend for the last few years. However, an analysis of rankers done by the corporate colleges indicates that the State's performance this year may not be that impressive.

The loss of nearly 40 days in the agitations during the crucial period of January-February months and the apprehensions of violence disturbed the students so much that it affected their performance. “Such agitations may not affect the top 200 rankers but those candidates who can crack IITs with real hard work were the most hit,” said teacher of a corporate college.

“The atmosphere at the colleges and around them was not just conducive to prepare for tests like IIT-JEE which is considered as the toughest in the world,” he said adding that students too were unhappy with their performance in the test. “It was hard to get into preparation mood after the periods of disturbance”.

Another factor haunting the colleges is the loss of some bright students to the AP- International Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT).

The rural toppers from across the State admitted two years ago would have otherwise joined the corporate colleges. The six-year course in AP-IIITs rules them out of the IIT competition as they acquire an engineering degree at the end of the course.

“At least 200 of those students had the potential of cracking IITs with proper guidance. Since they have not appeared for JEE this year, we lost some potential IITians,” says a senior teacher. Teachers say this will work to the advantage of other States.