The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Council Wednesday struck a compromise with the human resource development ministry on the new pattern of entrance examinations. Here are its salient features:

* There will be two exams, the joint entrance examination (JEE) 'main' followed by the JEE 'advanced'.

* These combine the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) and the IIT-JEE, with the 'main' exam being equivalent to AIEEE, and 'advanced' being equivalent to the IIT-JEE.

* There will be a 'suitable' time gap between the two exams, though it was not clarified how much.

* Only top 150,000 candidates (including all categories) from the JEE 'main' will be qualified to appear in the JEE 'advanced' examination.

* Admission to IITs will be based on the rank in the 'advanced' exam.

* However, only students who come in among the top 20 percent scorers in their respective board will be considered eligible for the IITs.

* The 'advanced' exam will be held by the IITs, just like the IIT- JEE. It will be conducted by a Joint Admission Board (JAB) and Joint Implementation Committee of the IITs, the same which so far conducted the JEE.

* The JEE 'main' will be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and it will coordinate with the IITs. It will be implemented from 2013.

* Admission to the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) will be based on the 'main' exam score. A final decision on methodology of admission is pending. A meeting of representatives from the NITs is scheduled for July 4.

* Admission to several deemed universities will also be on the basis of scores in the 'main' exam, which earlier took students on basis of AIEEE scores. A minimum percentage criteria will be fixed for these too.