No New Engineering Colleges From 2020: Govt Panel

New Delhi: If recommendations of a central government-appointed committee have its way, no new engineering colleges would be set up from 2020 onwards in Odisha along with other states.

Creation of new capacity will also be reviewed every two years.

The recommendation comes amid a growing concern over 50 per cent of engineering seats going vacant every year across the country.

In 2018, 25,000 engineering seats in various colleges in Odisha had no takers at the end of the online registration process.

A year earlier, as many number of seats remained vacant even as the government had cut down on the number from 44,000 to 25,000 to reduce the demand and supply gap.

The panel, in a 41-page report submitted to All India Council For Technical Education, has suggested that no additional seats should be approved in traditional engineering branches such as mechanical, electrical, civil and electronics and that institutes should be encouraged to convert current capacity in traditional disciplines to emerging new technologies.

This recommendation has been justified on the ground that current capacity utilisation in traditional disciplines is just 40 per cent as opposed to 60 per cent seat occupancy in branches such as computer science and engineering, aerospace engineering and mechatronics.

The suggestions are currently under consideration, AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabuddhe told Indian Express. The committee was headed by IIT Hyderabad chairman B V R Mohan Reddy.

The committee has suggested that AICTE should only give approvals based on the capacity utilisaitons of the institutes.

The reasons for half the institutes remaining vacant can be attributed to several factors in Odisha.

Though government engineering college continue to remain the most sought-after by students, private institutes fail to grab attention unless they happen to be among the best in the State.

“Some of the students do not land jobs soon after completing their studies. This may have created a negative impact on the minds of parents, thereby leading them to dissuade their wards from studying engineering,” general secretary of Odisha Private Engineering College Association had told TOI earlier.

A teacher of a leading private technical institute, said on condition of anonymity that the stakeholders setting up institutes have pure commerce in mind, making this institutes a minting machine for them.

“They had succeeded in the initial year when there was an across the board demand for engineering discipline. However, business was hit when such disciplines began to lose steam.”

The case is not unique for Odisha but for engineering colleges across the country.