The Maharashtra government has agreed to join the national Joint Entrance Exam – JEE for engineering admissions from the academic year 2014-15. A decision in this regard was taken by the state cabinet in its meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday. The government has said that scores of both the entrance exam and the standard 12th exam would be considered on 50:50 basis.

This is in line with the union HRD ministry's decision to have a single entrance test for admission to all centrally-funded institutions. As for the other engineering institutions in Maharashtra, the state government has clarified that JEE scores will be used for admission from academic year 2014-15.

Meanwhile, the state cabinet has also approved a strict policy proposal to check octroi evasion. The government will soon amend rules to allow civic chiefs to collect 10 times penalty on detecting evasion. On the rainfall issue, the government said that the state had received “satisfactory” rains so far this season.