NEW DELHI: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has put a blanket ban on opening of new engineering colleges for the next two years, as 50% of seats remain vacant in many institutes across the country. The AICTE has also decided to freeze new courses and will allow starting of new courses only in emerging disciplines.
The move was suggested by the expert committee headed by IIT Hyderabad Chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy.
The committee’s decision has come in the wake of too many institutes offering B.Tech courses across the country with too few students. Out of 27 lakh net intake capacity, only 13 lakh students took admission in 2019-20. The committee has, however, said the decision can be reviewed after two years.
The committee has noted that 518 engineering colleges were closed between 2015 and 2019. As per figures, about 6 lakh graduates were offered jobs through campus placements in 2019.
Besides banning new institutes, additional seats in traditional engineering streams—mechanical, electrical, civil and electronics—will also not be approved. The committee had also recommended that AICTE should focus on introducing undergraduate programmes in new-age courses such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, machine learning, data science and analytics, cloud computing, robotics, in the existing institutes.
According to the committee, enrollment in traditional engineering disciplines like Mechanical and Civil is less in comparison to emerging technologies such as Computer Science and Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechatronics etc. The committee, in its report, has also suggested that institutions should be encouraged to convert current capacity in traditional disciplines to emerging new technologies.
The new AICTE handbook, which outlines the rules and regulations for the coming academic years says that “in view of the large number of vacant seats in various programmes during the last few years and the likely future demand, the council shall not grant approval to new technical institutions at the diploma/undergraduate/postgraduate level in engineering and technology”. It is to be noted that the committee had last year recommended freezing of seats in the engineering colleges and institutes from 2020, especially in traditional streams like civil and mechanical. The committee had cited low capacity utilisation, 49.8% and has recommended that no new capacity be created starting from the 2020 academic year.