Over 2.27 Lakh Engineering Seats reduced between 2014-18

NEW DELHI, JULY 26: The enrolment in engineering colleges has gone down by over 2.27 lakh between 2014-15 and 2017-18. The total number of seats in All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approved institutions has decreased from 16, 94,030 in 2014-15 to 14,66,713 in 2017-18, showing a decline of 13.41 per cent.

Earlier this year, it was reported that AICTE has reduced approximately 80,000 engineering seats in the year 2018-19 alone, and as many as 200 substandard engineering colleges have also applied for closure.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Dr Satya Pal Singh speaking in the Rajya Sabha said that the decline in the number of engineering seats is attributed to openings available in the field of Pharmacy, Hotel Management, PGDM, MBA, Architecture etc. The Minister also said that the numbers have gone down because of non-furnishing of No Objection Certificates (NOC) by the State Governments for opening new Engineering Colleges.

To address the issue of the drop in the number of seats, the government has taken steps like improving the technical know-how, skills, competence of graduating students and promote innovation.

The number of seats is likely to go down further as in large number of colleges more than half of the seats remain vacant. On the other hand, the AICTE has made it mandatory for technical institutions to get 50 per cent of their programs accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). Presently, only 15 per cent programmes of such institutions have been accredited by the NBA.