140 engg colleges given 1 month to reply to AICTE notice

CHENNAI: Authorities of 140 colleges that were sent showcause notices by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have been given one month to reply, Anna University vice-chancellor P Mannar Jawahar said on Wednesday. The notices were sent after the institutions were found to be functioning with a lack of infrastructure such as inadequate land and human resources.
Talking to TOI on Wednesday, the vice-chancellor, who is also the chairman of the AICTE's southern regional committee, said: "Each college that has been sent notice will have to send us a detailed complaint report wherein they will have to specify the action that they have taken to correct the shortcomings pointed out by the Council. Meanwhile, these institutions also have to renew their affiliation for the 2011-2012 year. Therefore, an affiliation team will visit each college, furnished with a copy of the complaints report. Members of this team will verify whether the corrective action mentioned in the report has actually been carried out."
Pointing out that the 140 institutions had been pulled up on issues such as initiating additional intake of students and starting new courses but without the required number of classrooms, lavatories or teachers, Jawahar said complaints had been received over these colleges being granted affiliation despite not having adequate resources. The affiliation team would begin visiting colleges in the state from the last week of February. The inspection process is expected to be completed by June, he added.
In August 2010, minister for higher education K Ponmudy had announced that the ministry had written to the AICTE asking it not to grant approval for any new engineering college in Tamil Nadu in 2011-12. While this move was seen as necessary to strike a balance between technical education and basic science courses, experts also felt the cap would help curb the spread of institutions mushrooming without the necessary support such as adequate faculty strength.