AICTE approves 54,618 engineering seats in 174 new institutions for 2019-20 academic sessions

For 2019-20 sessions, the All India Council for Technical Education, AICTE has approved 54,618 new seats across diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate courses in 174 new engineering colleges in the country. Out of 174 new institutions, 13 institutions including 10 engineering and 3 diploma colleges have been approved in the state of Karnataka. The three Diploma/Polytechnic colleges in the state have got 780 new engineering seats this year. Out of the total 39,198 undergraduate and postgraduate seats in the entire country, Karnataka shares 27 percent.

The number of engineering seats has been consistently dipping in the country over a few last years. In 2017-18, AICTE had approved a total of 28.7 lakh seats including fresh approval, while on the next year; the number of seats has dropped by 1.6 lakh seats. In 2019-20, the number of engineering seats has been dropped to 24.9 lakh seats.

Few institutes withdrew a few courses like mechanical and civil because of the less admission as compared to total seats. A total of 178 institutions offering 41,000 seats are being closed now.   Also, AICTE had approved the request of 4,240 institutions for reduction of their intake by 2.41 lakh seats. Also, around 376 engineering colleges who got approval in 2018-19 have not applied for approval to run courses for the year 2019-20. As a result, 13,400 seats are being vacant this year.

A total of new undergraduate and postgraduate seats have been approved by the All India Council for Technical Education for the session 2019-20 despite of the fact that many seats were vacant in the last year.  Last year, none of the engineering aspirants contested for 21,000 seats.

The sources of AICTE said that, a few years back the annual reduction to be around 50,000-60,000 but from last 3 years, the reduction is in lakhs as few streams could not attract engineering aspirants.