3 years later, AICTE lifts ban on new engineering colleges, scraps minimum land norm

 Apex technical education regulator All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Thursday lifted the moratorium on new engineering colleges that was put in place in 2020-21 due to decreasing demand for seats.

New engineering colleges, including the ones starting courses in core branches like mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering, will be allowed from the academic year 2023-24 onwards, according to the AICTE’s Approval Process Handbook 2023-24 released Thursday.

The AICTE decided to lift the moratorium on the recommendation of an expert committee led by IIT-Hyderabad Board of Governors Chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, on whose suggestion the ban had been first advised in 2019.

According to data from the AICTE, the total intake in AICTE-approved engineering institutions had declined from 26.95 lakh seats in 2012-13 to 23.66 lakh seats in 2021-22.

Kumar added that the council has told colleges that they should have at least one branch in emerging areas like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning if they have three core engineering branches like Mechanical and Civil on offer in their institutes.

He also said the council had noted that the quality of graduates coming out of engineering colleges had improved.

In other significant changes, the council has relaxed land norms for the institutions, asking for greater focus on the built-up area so that institutions can offer multi-disciplinary programmes, according to Kumar.

Core engineering branches suggested in the AICTE handbook are Agriculture Engineering, Automobile Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Food Technology, Industrial Engineering, Instrumentation, and Mechanical Engineering.

Emerging area courses include Microelectronics and VLSI, Smart Mobility, EV-Technology, Transportation, Highway Engineering, Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Earth System Sciences, 5G, Sustainable Development & Circular Economy, Waste Management, Product Design, CRISPR Cas – 9, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Embedded SW, Internet SW, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud Computing, etc.