Bad news for engineering aspirants? AICTE may reduce intake in B Tech, M Tech by nearly 1.3 lakh

NEW DELHI: In what is likely to be a bad news for Engineering students, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) may reduce its intake by almost 1.3 lakh B.Tech and M.Tech seats from this July. Since technical institutes in the country have failed to fill their vacant seats, they have approached the AICTE to reduce its intake. No decision has been taken as yet but it is unlikely that the permission to the colleges will be denied. 

While 83 engineering institutes having 24,000 seats have applied for closure, 494 other colleges are seeking permission to discontinue undergraduate and postgraduate engineering courses. The permission, if granted, will reduce the intake of students by another 42,000 seats; 639 other institutes have approached the AICTE to reduce their intake by 62,000 seats.

AICTE may impose a penalty on colleges which have had a poor admission recorded over the last five years. Technical courses where admission has been consistently less than 30 percent will reportedly be forced to reduce their seats by half in the new academic year starting this July. This despite the fact that technical education in India contributes a major share to the overall education system.

In 2016-17, 51 per cent of over 15 lakh seats in 3,900 engineering colleges in India were vacant.

Students and professors have been blaming the increasing unemployment for the decision. "One of the major reason behind this is that AICTE couldn't provide job opportunities in the ratio in which they increased the number of seats," a professor at Harcourt Butler Technical University said. He also added that such a situation only exists in private colleges. "We are, in fact, going to increase the number of seats," he said.