Final call on students' intake still elusive

Apprehending a rerun of last year’s delayed counselling process for admission, private engineering colleges in the City have urged the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to finalise the number of candidates’ intake for the academic year 2011-2012, at the earliest.

Last year, the seat-selection process for engineering courses in the State was put off several times due to teething troubles in the e-accreditation process introduced by the AICTE. As a result, candidates eligible for the Common Entrance Test were left in the lurch.

The Council had computerised the process of renewing affiliation last year. As per the new system, colleges have to submit an online application to renew their affiliation each year.

According to K N Balasubramanya Murthy, Principal of PES Institute of Technology, the accreditation process should have started at least by November first week. “It took us four months to upload information about the college last year. The website was not working most of the time. We hope things would be better this time,” said Murthy.

There is a good deal of hand-wringing among engineering colleges who want to finish the approval process fast but can’t do anything without receiving any communique from the AICTE. The present framework requires colleges to upload their information online.

“The deadline for submitting information was revised many times last year. Colleges need ample time to submit the information online,” said K Rajanikanth, Principal of MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology.

Sources in the AICTE regional office told Deccan Herald that they have not taken any decision regarding the approval procedure, yet. “We hope the approval process kick-starts within fifteen days,” said an AICTE official.