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According to the recently released data of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the total number of seats in engineering institutes in the country has fallen to the lowest in a decade. According to the released data, the number of engineering seats at graduate, post graduate and diploma level has come down to 23.28 lakh, which is the lowest in the last 10 years.
This year there was a decline of 1.46 lakh in seats
In fact, this year there has been a decline of 1.46 lakh seats due to the closure of institutes and lack of admission. However, despite the reduction in the number of seats, engineering still accounts for 80 per cent of the total seats in the field of technical education in the country. In 2014-15, there were around 32 lakh engineering seats across all AICTE recognized institutes. The decline in seats began seven years ago, when colleges began to close. Since then, a total of 400 engineering colleges have been closed.
About 50 institutes closed every year
About 50 engineering institutes have closed every year since 2015-16. Talking about this year, AICTE has approved the closure of 63 institutes this year. In the year 2019, AICTE had announced a moratorium of two years for new institutes starting from 2020-21. The decision was taken on the recommendation of a government committee headed by IIT-Hyderabad chairman BVR Mohan Reddy. The technical education regulator's approval figure for setting up new engineering institutes is at a five-year low.