Pvt engineering colleges facing crisis

Bhubaneswar: With as many as nine private engineering colleges failing to enrol a single student and total strength of the new batch is less than 10 in 18 colleges after the first phase counselling, it seems that these institutions are staring at a crisis of sorts.

Now a look at a more macro picture reveals that government and private engineering colleges have a combined intake capacity of 48,000. However, only 11,393 seats have been filled up after the completion of the first phase of counselling. While there are only 50 seats vacant in government engineering colleges, on the contrary, more than 36,000 seats are lying vacant in private ones. Apart from the aforementioned abysmal enrolment figures, there are 32 private colleges where the batch strength is less than 30 students, as per OJEE sources.

Alarm bells have started to ring for these colleges as OJEE chairman Tushar Kumar Nath observes, “The management of these colleges will find it difficult to sustain themselves.”

Such a development is also a cause of concern for the student who take admissions into these colleges. As academician Pritish Acharya notes “It will have a significant impact on the admitted students as low sterength of a batch could result in negligence on the part of the management. Such negligence will further tantamount to misery for these colleges as negative perception about these colleges will hider students from taking admissions.”

Noticeably, there is a yawning gap between the government and private engineering colleges.

“Why private colleges are not performing at par with government colleges is a cause of concern and this anomaly has to be investigated,” feels Acharya.