Over 800 engineering colleges across the country face closure

Over 800 engineering colleges across the country that have had a student enrolment of less than 30 per cent of their capacity for five consecutive years will be asked to shut down from the coming academic year (2018–19).

This has become necessary as the loss of students has started reflecting in the quality of education, reports quoting chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Anil D Sahasrabudhe said.

''Those which have had enrolment of less than 30 per cent of their capacity for 5 years will be told to shut down,'' he was quoted as saying.

''Students can be shifted to engineering colleges in the vicinity that have sufficient student strength,'' he said, and added that the decision was taken after several deliberations and collating data from colleges from different States.

''We compared the figures for the total intake and the admissions made for five years, and made a list of colleges that need to be shut down,'' he said.

There are 10,363 engineering colleges across the country. The mushrooming of engineering colleges, however, however, has brought about a surplus capacity that far outstripped demand.

Every year, thousands of engineering seats go vacant, he said, adding that for the 2017–18 academic year, over 29,000 engineering seats fell vacant in Karnataka alone.

The seats that go vacant are in colleges where infrastructure is inadequate and faculty members are not up to the mark. So it is better if such institutions close down, according to one official from Karnataka's technical education department.

Also, some streams like information technology have become less attractive and even reputed colleges find it difficult to fill vacant seats, according to the official.