Engineering diploma, degree seats: Gujarat govt revokes order ‘partially’, adds 510 seats in 16 institutes

An equal number of 30 seats have been added in these 16 government and grant-in-aid engineering institutes.

However, the status of number of sanctioned seats in remaining colleges remain the same as stated in the February GR following AICTE admission guidelines and other necessary information, the GR issued on Saturday states.

The state government’s decision of closing down such a huge number of engineering seats had received a a lot of flak from not only the Opposition Congress but also the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student organisation affiliated to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that had been taking up the matter with the state government and recently resorted to calls for bandh over the issue.

Principal Secretary Education Anju Sharma, however, denied that the decision was taken under political pressure. “It has been done on the basis of representations received by the state government to provide options in remote areas.”

The Indian Express had reported on February 10 how in its GR issued on February 7, the state government decided to cut down nearly 7,000 seats in 69 branches in 23 government polytechnic colleges and over 2,550 seats of 29 branches in 11 engineering colleges to be taken for effective ‘academic and administration’ of government and grant-in-aid technical institutes, effective from academic session 2020-21.

After this move, Congress had already accused the state government of promoting privitisation in education.

“This is another attempt in the education sector to promote self-financed institutes that charge exorbitant fees from students. When 55-65 per cent seats in self-financed colleges remain vacant every year and only 10-15 in government and government-funded colleges, the decision to close down its own seats by the government is certainly questionable,” Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi had said.

ABVP members had been spreading awareness across the state pertaining to the government’s notification stating that this not only hinders students’ interest but is also promoting privatisation in the field of education.

After submitting representations condemning the state government’s move to Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, district collectors of 19 affected districts as well as MLAs, ABVP also gave a call for bandh in the affected colleges this week.

The state government had justified its move by citing a high number of vacant seats.

“There was an analysis conducted by the education department of seats that went vacant in engineering colleges and polytechnic over last three-four years. In 2019-20, there was a huge number of vacant seats in engineering colleges and polytechnic institutes.

As a result of which the enrollment in several government colleges declined drastically,” the GR states.

Further, citing the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) guidelines, the GR states, “According to AICTE, it is mandatory for every institute to have NBA’s (National Board of Accreditation) accreditation for 50 per cent of its courses before academic session 2022-23. On the basis of which, sanctioned intake student-faculty ratio (SFR) is calculated. So, it was neccessary to reduce the current intake and take a decision on the revised intake.”