Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court sought to know the stand of the state government on a batch of petitions filed by several engineering colleges, complaining that they have been forbidden from taking BTech admissions in courses on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), cyber security, data science, among others. The colleges said they had secured affiliation from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and recognition from universities.
The colleges alleged that the government is concerned about financial implications by way of fee reimbursement and other scholarships. To buttress their contentions, they submitted a notice by the commissioner of technical education which said that the additional course intake would cause financial burdens.
CVR Engineering College, JBIT, Royal College and 14 colleges urged the court to direct the government, technical education department and the convener of TS Eamcet-2022, to validate the new courses so that students could join them in the second phase of Eamcet counselling that will commence on September 28.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and C.V. Bhaskar Reddy heard the petitions.
Senior counsel S. Niranjan Reddy, representing the colleges, pointed out that as the intake was getting reduced for conventional courses like civil, chemical and mechanical engineering and many colleges closed them up in order to start emerging courses that had a better future.
“The government can take a call on reimbursement of fees. The colleges are ready for the newly proposed courses,” Niranjan Reddy said.
The court was not inclined to issue orders to the government to permit the new courses, without hearing the contentions of the government. It asked the government to file its contention before the next hearing on October 11.
