Only 171 new colleges got AICTE approval in 2020-21

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approved 171 new institutes in the 2020-21 academic year, marking a 138% drop compared to last year when it

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approved 171 new institutes in the 2020-21 academic year, marking a 138% drop compared to last year when it gave approvals to over 945 institutes across professional courses. Experts say the lower number is due to the blanket ban on private engineering and pharmacy institutes across the country, despite year-on-year seat vacancy of up to 50%.

AICTE office at Janpath. (HT Photo)

According to AICTE, almost 70% of the institutes that were approved this year are government-run whereas in the past few years, private institutes have dominated engineering and pharmacy sectors. “While originally the ban on new engineering and pharmacy institutes was supposed to be until 2022, we received complaints and decided to go lenient on proposals for government-run engineering institutes only in those states where certain districts don’t have enough colleges for students,” said Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman, AICTE.

This year, the maximum number of institutes have been approved under management programs, followed by engineering. However, under engineering programs, more than 75% of the approved institutes will be government-funded. This year, Maharashtra received approvals for seven institutes, which include five management institutes and two government-aided engineering institutes.

Earlier this year, HT had reported that 2020-21 had seen the highest number of closures for technical institutions in the last nine years, with 179 institutes shutting down. Another 44 institutes had withdrawn their approvals for the 2021 academic year and 762 professional institutes had applied for reduction of seats. All this brought down the total number of seats for professional courses across the country by over 2.63 lakh in 2020-21 compared 2019-20.

Under AICTE’s blanket ban policy, not only were new institutes banned but additional seats in traditional engineering areas of mechanical, electrical, civil and electronics have also been banned. The committee further recommended that AICTE instead focus on existing institutes introducing undergraduate engineering programs in new-age courses such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, machine learning, data science and analytics, cloud computing and robotics. Since the two-year ban on new engineering institutes was implemented starting 2020, several institutes have sought permission to start new branches in these areas.

“Several branches of engineering including civil and mechanical are attracting very few students of late due to the few job offers they get. The software industry, on the other hand, is continuously evolving and thus attracting good jobs and students,” said Gopakumaran Thampi, principal, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, in Bandra. He added that reduced seats in redundant branches and giving boost to new dimensions in the field are being welcomed by engineering aspirants.