Engineering aspirants have fewer seats to fight for as intake capacity dips in state

Mumbai:engineering aspirants in the state will have fewer seats to fight for this year with the total intake capacity falling by another 10,000.

According to figures shared by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), the total seat intake at engineering institutes in the state stands at 1.28 lakh this year, down from 1.38 lakh last year.

“Increasing vacancy in state engineering institutes, especially in rural Maharashtra is forcing many institutes to shut shop or at least shut down lesser popular branches of engineering. This is the main reason for decreasing intake capacity of state engineering institutes,” said a senior official from DTE. While results of the state conducted Common Entrance Test (CET) were announced last week, registrations to these seats will begin from June 7.

After a steady rise in the intake capacity of engineering institutes from 2009 to 2015, the first drop in seats was witnessed in the 2015-16 academic year when 1,000 seats were reduced. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, however, almost 10,000 seats have been reduced.

Similarly, vacancy at these engineering institutes kept increasing for several years until 2017-18, where there was a drop in vacant seats in state run engineering institutes. From 44.78% vacant seats left in 2016-17, the vacancy stood at 36% in 2017-18.

“Demand for engineering seats have gone down over the years and the difference would have been more had it not been for some polytechnic institutes in the state that have upgraded to engineering institutes this year,”

said the official.

For the past two years, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has been calling for suggestions from stakeholders in order to fill in this huge demand and supply gap of engineering seats. The suggestions ranged from reducing the eligibility criteria for students as well as introducing a common national level entrance exam for all engineering aspirants, none of which have been applied as yet.

“This year, registrations for engineering entrance exam have gone up and we hope this will reduce vacancy even further for the upcoming academic year,” added the official.