‘No cut in State engg seats’

DHNS

New Delhi, 07 July 2010: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has clarified that it has not cut down Karnataka’s share of engineering seats.

“We have not cut down a single seat for Karnataka,” AICTE acting chairman S S Mantha told the media.

“Some of the institutions have filed incorrect information. Since we have introduced a new self-disclosure system from this year, the system, if fed with incorrect data, will throw up incorrect results. And precisely that has happened in Karnataka’s case,” he said.

“Those institutions have sent their representations and we are working on it. It may take another couple of days to take a decision on this issue,” he said.

Under the self-disclosure mechanism, colleges have to fill online forms providing details on their infrastructure, ownership, faculty, courses, fee and students.  The colleges will also have to attach a list of essential documents that will be scrutinised by the AICTE.

The form and the documents should be accompanied by an electronically attached affidavit signed by the college committing to the correctness of the information submitted. This affidavit, to be signed before a judicial magistrate, will be the AICTE’s quality security because if the college is found to be lying, it could be dragged to the court.

Each college will be assigned a unique identity number when it fills the online form. The information on the form, once submitted, gets locked and cannot be altered either by the college or by the AICTE.Counselling for admission to engineering colleges in Karnataka was slated for July 7 but managements of several institutions had sought postponement in view of the reduction in the number of seats approved by the AICTE.

It has been estimated that the total number of engineering college seats have come down by 10,000 this year. The AICTE will no longer inspect an institution at the time of its application for renewal of approval, which will also be done through the self-disclosure mechanism.

The apex body will only send inspection team if it receives complaint against any institution. The inspection team will be randomly picked by a computer from a database of experts from the concerned field of study, to avoid allegations that experts were picked up by vested interests.