24,000 engineering seats vacant in MP colleges
November 24, 2009: The Indian Express
Getting an engineering degree was never so easy in Madhya Pradesh as an unprecedented 24,511 seats are waiting to be filled in colleges across the state. Anybody who has cleared the Class XII examination can get into an engineering college, still there are no takers.
The mushrooming of new colleges in the past two years coupled with the long delay in admission procedure, litigation being the major reason, have brought about an unforseen crisis.
While a few top colleges have all their seats taken, other colleges are struggling to reach two digits. Out of 208 colleges, about 40 have reported less than 10 per cent admission.
Close to 47,000 students have already taken admissions but the number is unlikely to go up even after the special counselling session scheduled to begin from November 23 on the directive from the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
Over the past two years, the state has got 84 new colleges adding 33,000 seats. Last year, the number of vacant seats was just 2,618. “It was never so serious,¶ secretary to the Admission and Fees Regulatory Committee Sunil Kumar told The Indian Express.
The delay in counselling was accompanied by mushrooming of new colleges last year, Sunil Kumar said, adding that close to 25 per cent seats were added last year by 50 new institutions.
The Federation of Professional and Technical Colleges has blamed the crisis entirely on the state government, holding it responsible for framing “rules that are not practical and that lead to litigation¶.
Federation president S K Ramtani said the delayed counselling drove Madhya Pradesh students to other states and prevented outsiders from applying to state colleges. Federation office-bearer B S Yadav claimed constant delay in admission procedure has eroded the credibility of colleges in Madhya Pradesh.
More than 12,200 vacancies have been reported from Bhopal alone where a major chunk of professional colleges have come up recently. Indore comes next with more than 4,600 seats while while smaller towns like Vidisha, Khargone and Mandsaur, where only a handful colleges are located, have fared much better.
Fewer admissions have pushed new colleges to the verge of closure as the glut of seats means they can’t hope for the situation to get better in the near future. But the worst-hit are the students as colleges with less than 10 per cent admission may not find it feasible to continue classes in this academic session.
As a last ditch effort, the Federation officials have asked the state government to change the rules to allow less fortunate colleges to “share students¶.
The arrangement, if accepted, will allow some colleges to survive, leaving those with no students to declare ‘zero year’ and escape recruiting teachers and spending on infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Minister for Technical Education Laxmikant Sharma has asked his principal secretary to probe and submit a report within 45 days on how the situation came to such a pass, and how the procedure can be streamlined from next year.
THE PROBLEM OF PLENTY
24,511 (Seats vacant in engineering colleges across MP)
47,000 (Admissions taken this year)
84 (New colleges in two years)
33, 000 (Seats added in two years)
12,200 (Seats available in Bhopal alone)
