Senior officials from the higher education department will meet the chairman of All India Council for Technical Education, Prof. S.S. Mantha, and other officials in New Delhi on Monday to check the feasibility of setting of more engineering colleges in the state ahead of the new academic year.
The principal secretary of higher education, Mr C.R. Biswal, the commissioner for technical education, Mr Laxminarayana and the vice-chancellor of JNTU-Hyderabad, Prof. D.N. Reddy, will submit a letter on behalf of the state government urging the AICTE not to grant second shift and additional sections in the existing engineering colleges and discourage the setting up of new colleges in the state this year.
The team will submit statistics on availability of engineering seats and actual demand to prove the “gross mismatch” between the two. The delegation will inform the AICTE that the state already has 707 engineering colleges with an intake of about three lakh seats and last year nearly one lakh seats went vacant due to poor demand. Several engineering colleges located in the districts and semi-urban areas are heading for closure while colleges located in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam have been seeking additional sections based on “locational advantage”.
The team will also request the AICTE to fix a cut-off date for approvals and renewals this year to avoid delay in admissions process.
Source : DC