AICTE to do away with ‘capping of seats’ at private colleges

Chandigarh, November 26

In the coming days, norms related to ‘capping of seats’ at private technical colleges will be done away with and institutes can fill seats based on their infrastructure and strength of teaching faculty.

Rajiv Kumar, member secretary, All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), said the process to give relaxation to private technical colleges offering engineering courses was underway.

According to existing norms, private technical institutes having accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) were allowed to increase seats. The ones which didn’t had the accreditation were not allowed to increase these.

Anshu Kataria, chief, Punjab Unaided Colleges’ Association, said the move would benefit technical institutes offering engineering courses.

Besides, the AICTE has also brought BBA and BCA courses offered at private technical colleges under its ambit.

Earlier, the AICTE had done away with the land requirement norms for starting a technical institution.

Now, the covered area along with floor area ratio (FAR) and floor space index (FSI) will be the parameter to start an institution. The council has also lifted the moratorium for starting a new college from 2023-24. For the past many years, there had been a ban on starting new technical institutes in the country.

Any society/trust or company can now establish new technical institute. In 2019, the council had put a moratorium on new engineering and technology colleges owing to 45 per cent seat vacancy in these colleges.

The AICTE has also increased the maximum approved intake from the current 300 to 360 in engineering and management programmes and from 180 to 300 in computer application programme.

Now, merger of different postgraduate diplomas and MBA programmes would also be allowed as long as the student-teacher ratio is maintained.

New parameter to start institution

• Now, the covered area along with floor area ratio and floor space index will be the parameter to start an institution
• The All-India Council for Technical Education has also lifted the moratorium for starting a new college from 2023-24.