BANDRA COLLEGE BARRED FROM CONDUCTING ADMISSIONS

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) barred an engineering college in Bandra from conducting admissions for the upcoming academic year. The regulatory body for technical education has, however, allowed an engineering college in Sion to admit new students.

AICTE has put Thadomal Shahani Engineering College in Bandra in the ‘No Admission’ category, as the college allegedly flouted its land norms. It has also denied Watumull Institute of Electronics Engineering & Computer Technology in Worli permission to shift to another campus in Ulhasnagar.

The two colleges still have a shot at an extension of approval, which allows institutes to admit students.

AICTE, however, permitted Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil Pratishthan’s College of Engineering in Sion, which was put under the ‘No Admission’ category, to admit new students from the next academic year after it furnished an occupancy certificate from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

The college management will now request the state to allow it to re-admit all the transferred students. “We lost close to Rs 3 crore because of the shifting,” said Appasaheb Desai, general secretary of the college.

City engineering colleges have accused the regulatory body of functioning in a ‘high-handed’ manner. “AICTE allows many colleges to function despite deficiencies such as lack of teachers. But Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, which is one of the best in the state, has been denied approval,” said Gopakumaran Thampi, principal.