Many BTech seats may go unfilled in Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad: Even though the government took steps to advance counselling, many engineering seats are likely to be go vacant this year. The not so encouraging response to the certificates verification exercise is an indication of this.

Out of the 90,000 rankers who have been asked to verify certificates, only 53,000 turned up as on June 13. It may be mentioned here that 1.31 lakh candidates qualified in the engineering entrance test this year. This year the number of seats is likely to be around 1.2 lakh.

According to Santhi Ramudu, President of AP Private Engineering Colleges Association, nearly 20,000 seats may go vacant this year.

“Nearly 70,000 to 75,000 seats of the Convener’s quota of 84,000 and 25,000 seats in the management quota are likely to be filled. This is better than last year when over 45,000 seats could not be filled,” he said. The AP government has rejected the proposal of colleges for a 40 per cent fee hike.

Also, private managements’ demand to hike the fee reimbursement amount was also not accepted. With allotment of seats set to commence in a week’s time, the revised fee structure for the next three years is likely to be released in the next few days.

If this is the situation in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana students are made to wait endlessly for announcement of counseling dates. The colleges’ affiliation list is yet to be announced.

Along with JNTU-Hyderabad, Vigilance Department conducted separate inspections in engineering colleges. Both these reports will be cross-checked to announce the final list of colleges that will be given affiliation for the coming academic year. Hence, there is no clarity on first phase of counseling in Telangana.

However, authorities will be going ahead with the certificates verification process from June 22 onwards. It may be recalled that 1.03 lakh engineering aspirants qualified for TS Eamcet this year. Although, final affiliated list is still being processed, private engineering college representatives stated that 75,000 seats are likely to be available this year.

Big exodus to Tamil Nadu engineering colleges
Engineering aspirants from AP, especially Rayalaseema, prefer institutions in Tamil Nadu. Since many years AP students have been flocking to deemed institutions like SRM University (Chennai), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore.

AP Private Engine-ering Colleges Assoc-ation attributed this trend to the negative publicity regarding teh quality of education in private engineering colleges in both the Telugu states.

Reputed TN institutions are going the extra mile by sending agents to attract students from Rayala-seema and it is fetching good results.

Association President Santhi Ramudu, however, stated that unlike last year, early counseling ensured there was no big exodus of students to Tamil Nadu. He explained that there are 70 to 80 private engineering colleges maintaining good standards in AP and hence students should not look for options elsewhere.