New Delhi: The total number of engineering seats in the country has gone up this year after falling to the lowest in the last ten years, last year, ThePrint has learnt. As per the data accessed by ThePrint, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has given approval to 52 new Engineering and Technology colleges this year, which takes up the total number of seats in engineering to 23,93,820. This is slightly higher than last year’s 23,66,656, which was the lowest number of engineering seats in the country in the last 10 years.
A total of 142 new technical institutions including Engineering and Technology, Management, and Master of Computer Application (MCA) have been given the approval to start. As per the sources in AICTE, the approval process for new technical institutions has been completed and the institutions have been informed about the addition of seats.
The data shows that due to addition of new colleges, the total number of technical education seats in the country has also gone up this year and will be 35,27,422, which includes Engineering and Technology, MCA, and Management seats. The total number of seats offered across the country in various technical courses last year was nearly 30 lakh, which has considerably gone up this year. Out of the total seats in technical courses, the maximum are from Engineering and Technology streams.
The approval bureau of the AICTE had received 172 applications from new institutes offering Engineering and Technology, Management, and MCA courses. Out of those, 142 colleges have been granted permission to start. The number of new Management institutions that have been given the approval is also high at 80, out of the 96 institutions that had applied.
Sources informed that there was a huge demand for opening Management institutions this year. Two years ago, AICTE had decided not to give permission to any new Engineering college, citing low intake in engineering seats. However, this clause came with a caveat of allowing colleges that offer courses in new disciplines like Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Machine Learning to go ahead. Officials in AICTE said the colleges that have been given permission this year fall under the category of offering courses in new disciplines.
(Edited by Siddarth Muralidharan)
Also Read: Engineering seats in India hit 10-year low, while management seats continue to grow
Source: The Print
