Over 75 engineering colleges in the country to be shut down from this academic year onwards

According to media reports, more than 75 engineering and technical colleges across the country have opted for ‘progressive closure’ from this academic year. This means that these institutions will not take fresh admissions from this academic year onwards. As per reports, the most important reason for this is closure is that there are no takers for the different programmes offered by these engineering colleges.

From the list of colleges which will be closed from this year majority of them are from the state of Uttar Pradesh as per the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) officials.

The engineering and technological education in the country is regulated by the AICTE. In the academic year 2017-18 and 2018-19, 106 and 54 institutions had opted for closure. However, the progressive closure will not affect the studies of the existing students, admitting that the institutes will stop taking in fresh students and continue to function until the time the existing students in the colleges' graduate.

In the state of Uttar Pradesh, 31 colleges have opted for progressive closure. The other states include Punjab with 6 colleges, Chhattisgarh and Haryana with 5 colleges, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat with 4 colleges each, Rajasthan, Telangana, Odisha, and Maharashtra with 2 colleges each.

According to the AICTE, there are around 264 engineering colleges operating in the country without approval from the council. As per a recommendation in the newly published by the AICTE - ‘Short and Medium Term Perspectives’ states that no further increase in seats in engineering colleges and institutes will be done.

Stating the low capacity utilization which is 49.8 percent in case of Capacity Vs Enrollment, the AICTE has recommended that no new capacity should be created starting from the academic year of 2020. The creation of new capacity can be reviewed every two years from 2020.