Engineering seats down by 2.4% this year

The number of undergraduate engineering seats available in the state for 2019-20 academic year has come down by 2.4%.

Some engineering colleges have failed to meet the criterion such as infrastructure, qualified faculty, student-teacher ratio, laboratory facility etc - set by the All India Council for Technical Education - and consequently, the number of seats up for grabs have been reduced.

As per the data available from the state department of technical education, a total of 2,194 seats were reduced during the academic year 2018-19, most of them at private unaided engineering colleges. The number of engineering seats available in the state during 2019-20 is 74,389 compared to 76,669 during 2018-19.

However, this reduction will not lead to any shortage of engineering seats given the fact there had been an increase in the number of engineering seats lying vacant in the state. More than 20,000 engineering seats were not filled during 2018-19. H U Talwar, Director state Department of Technical Education said, “There is a slight reduction in seats, but that is not going to effect the aspirants as three new government engineering colleges have been added to the list.”

He said that the number of students eligible to take up engineering courses has come down by 2.4% this year and thence there was no question of shortage of seats.