58 tech institutes apply for closure to AICTE

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has received 58 applications for closure of institutes. The applications for academic year 2013-14 have come from across the country and include five from Maharashtra. The number is expected to go up by the December-end deadline.

"Applications for closure can be sent till December 31, 2012. Processing starts in January 2013. We have received equal number of applications for closure from engineering and management institutes," said AICTE chairman S S Mantha.

AICTE has received 21 applications each from engineering and management institutes, 10 from pharmacy institutes and six from institutes offering masters degrees in computer applications (MCA).

Most, seven, applicants are from Andhra Pradesh, followed by five each from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttarakhand.

In Maharashtra, 42,000 of 1.55 lakh engineering and 25,000 of 59,000 management seats went abegging this academic year.

AICTE has allowed several technical institutes with large-scale vacancies to shut shop in the last two years. These include 52 engineering institutes (13,463 seats) and 225 management institutes (11,692 seats). Three of the closed engineering colleges (840 seats) and 18 management colleges (1,740 seats) were in Maharashtra.

"The demand for quality institutes will never go down. The country needs good engineers and smart managers. For academic year 2012-13, AICTE approved 100 new engineering institutes and 82 management institutes.

Fly-by-night operators or those that have failed to offer quality education, have poor infrastructure, inadequate faculty and no established placement record are finding it difficult to get students and are shutting down," said a senior faculty.

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