60 engineering colleges may face closure

There are almost 60 degree and diploma engineering colleges across the state, mainly in its rural parts may soon face closure. In these 60 colleges more than 40% of the seats are lying vacant through the admission process which is almost over in these colleges.

A senior official said, “Earlier, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) gave permission for closure of engineering colleges after the state issued no-objection certificates. Now, though, in view of a recent Supreme Court order, the University Grants Commission will have to take the decision and not AICTE. We expect managements of 60 colleges to seek permission for closure of their institutes.”

He further added once these colleges will receive permission for closure college managements may change the educational complexes into malls or use these space other commercial purposes. He further said, “Most managements had taken loans ranging from Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore when they started out. Now, they have no option but to utilize the premises for commercial purposes to repay their loans.” He blamed AICTE for this situation of technical education in the country.

He said, “Although we made it clear to AICTE that there are an estimated 1.4 lakh vacancies in professional colleges, it went ahead and granted permission for 11 more colleges.” Giving more details about the vacant seats in these colleges, he said that the students intake capacity of 1.5 lakh, 55,000 seats are still vacant. Besides, in diploma colleges nearly 60,000 seats are vacant against the strength of 1.6 lakh students. According to the official, 42.7% of engineering seats in Aurangabad region were vacant, followed by 38% in Nashik, 28.9% in Nagpur, 26.7% in Amravati and 8.5% in Mumbai region.

In last four years, Maharashtra has been seeing a steady increase in vacant seats and it expected AICTE to corrective measures. He said, “AICTE should have drafted a master plan on whether there was a need for more seats in degree and diploma colleges. It appears that no steps were taken to ensure colleges do not face shutdown.”

He said while there was no end to the demand for private colleges in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur, there are no takers in rural area. “There is a regional imbalance. It's the AICTE as well as the state government's responsibility to ensure equitable distribution of seats. AICTE should not consider applications for colleges in urban areas for increasing seats.”