City gets 5 new professional colleges

Students who want to pursue engineering and management will have 28 more options to choose from in the state this year. Mumbai will get four management institutes and one engineering college.

Students who want to pursue engineering and management will have 28 more options to choose from in the state this year. Mumbai will get four management institutes and one engineering college.

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The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) approved the new institutions on Tuesday.

“In all, 28 institutions in Maharashtra have been approved. They can start functioning from this academic year,” said Anil Shukla, regional director, AICTE.

The state had recommended 52 professional institutes out of the 98 applications it received this year.

Last year, the AICTE had approved 116 new colleges in the state out of the 240 proposals recommended. This year applications across the country have reduced.

While AICTE has tightened its norms, experts said that the market for technical education has saturated.

Every year seats are going vacant especially in new colleges that have not yet established a reputation. Last year, 9,000 management seats and 22,000 engineering seats went vacant after the admission process got over.

But new colleges feel that if an institute is good, it will gain a reputation quickly.

“There is an overwhelming demand for management education in Mumbai. If a B-school has excellent infrastructure and faculty, students will make a beeline for it,” said Richard Heredia, chief operating officer of Sheila Raheja B-School, a new institute in Bandra that has just been approved.

In the state, 13 management institutes, 19 engineering colleges and one polytechnic have got the AICTE nod.

Four integrated campuses, which offer both engineering and management courses, have been approved. There are already 1.14 lakh engineering and 31,000 management seats in the state.