The professional college admissions row in Tamil Nadu deepened on Monday with Anna University Vice-Chancellor A Balaguruswamy declaring that over 200 private colleges in the state were prepared to accept the single-window system, pronounced by the state government.

He said, "Though under the Supreme Court order, private engineering colleges are free to adopt their own norms on admissions and fees, they still have to follow the rules and regulations of the Anna University, and the state government laws on the matter."

The court had, on October 31, ruled that unaided minority institutions could conduct entrance examinations for 100 per cent of their seats. Prior to the court ruling, they were allowed to conduct examinations for 50 per cent of their seats, with the entrance exam for the remaining seats being conducted by the All-India Council of Technical Education, a central government body.

The ruling has wider ramifications because it applies to unaided minority-run engineering, architecture and other professional colleges too.

Balaguruswamy' clarification comes a day after Tamil Nadu Private Professional Colleges Association president Jeppiyar, announced their decision to have private entrance examinations for admissions to their colleges.

Balaguruswamy clarified that they would follow a nominal fee structure. Given the large number of seats available in the engineering colleges in the state, students would benefit over all, and even the reservations system would not suffer, he said.

State Communist Party of India (Marxist) Secretary N Varadarajan, in a statement, said that any abandonment of the single-window system would lead to the collapse of the reservations system.

Pattali Makkal Katchi founder S Ramadoss said that the abandonment of the system could lead to poor students with good marks not getting admissions on merit, as they could not afford the high fee-structure that the private colleges are sure to introduce.

The Tamil Nadu government had introduced the single window system of admission of students to engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu during 1997-98 and streamlined the admission procedure on the basis of merit of the students.

Under the system, the Anna University collects the application forms, issues hall tickets and conducts the entrance examination under a single window.