New Delhi: Apex technical education regulator All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Thursday lifted the moratorium on new engineering colleges that was put in place in 2020-21 due to decreasing demand for seats.
New engineering colleges, including the ones starting courses in core branches like mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering, will be allowed from the academic year 2023-24 onwards, according to the AICTE’s Approval Process Handbook 2023-24 released Thursday.
The AICTE decided to lift the moratorium on the recommendation of an expert committee led by IIT-Hyderabad Board of Governors Chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, on whose suggestion the ban had been first advised in 2019.
“Moratorium for establishing New Institution in Engineering and Technology has been lifted from Academic Year 2023-24. However, for establishing a new institution in Engineering and Technology, preference shall be given to the applicant offering courses in multi-disciplinary areas in-line with NEP (National Education Policy) 2020 in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) areas,” reads the AICTE handbook.
Rajive Kumar, Member Secretary, AICTE, told ThePrint: “We did a review of the engineering seats last year and found that the admission percentage in engineering courses was going up. In the previous years, we had seen that the numbers were declining, but last year the admission percentage (was found to be) going up, hence it was decided that the moratorium should be lifted.”
According to data from the AICTE, the total intake in AICTE-approved engineering institutions had declined from 26.95 lakh seats in 2012-13 to 23.66 lakh seats in 2021-22.
Kumar added that the council has told colleges that they should have at least one branch in emerging areas like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning if they have three core engineering branches like Mechanical and Civil on offer in their institutes.
He also said the council had noted that the quality of graduates coming out of engineering colleges had improved.
In other significant changes, the council has relaxed land norms for the institutions, asking for greater focus on the built-up area so that institutions can offer multi-disciplinary programmes, according to Kumar.
“The space area requirement for colleges has been reduced because of the inclusion of online learning. Now that students are allowed to do up to 40 per cent of the courses online, the requirement for rooms has been reduced,” he explained.
Core engineering branches suggested in the AICTE handbook are Agriculture Engineering, Automobile Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Food Technology, Industrial Engineering, Instrumentation, and Mechanical Engineering.
Emerging area courses include Microelectronics and VLSI, Smart Mobility, EV-Technology, Transportation, Highway Engineering, Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Earth System Sciences, 5G, Sustainable Development & Circular Economy, Waste Management, Product Design, CRISPR Cas – 9, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Embedded SW, Internet SW, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud Computing, etc.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Placements, studying abroad — why UP’s engineering students not enthused by Hindi push