HYDERABAD: The sanction of additional intake of about 40,000 engineering and pharmacy (MPC stream) seats in well-established colleges is sounding the deathknell for engineering colleges in rural areas which are unable to fill their seats.Nearly a lakh seats had remained unfilled last year and yet some reputed colleges applied for additional strength as students prefer to seek admission to urban and established colleges with good infrastructure and faculty. This has put rural engineering colleges at a disadvantage and even at the risk of going bankrupt and facing closure.Speaking to Express, chairman of an engineering college situated in a rural part of Warangal district, said his college had received just 18 admissions for the 420 seats available last year, Now, with the approval for additional intake in reputed colleges, he lost all hopes of getting a single admission for the coming academic year of 2012-13.As the last date for applying for closure of a college for the next academic year has already ended, he said, he is thinking of filing the closure for the 2013-14 academic year.Though a huge number of seats have remained unfilled in the last few years in the state, the AICTE has been liberally sanctioning additional seats to colleges which apply for the same.Rural engineering college managements allege that well-established and urban colleges, which have a good image among students, are filling up all additional seats but are not maintaining the same standards or providing the same facilities to the newly-admitted candidates.While some colleges are able to fill more than 1,000 seats, some newly established colleges are finding it difficult to fill seats even in single digit, they lament.Rural colleges are demanding a limit on tuition fee reimbursement to 420 seats in non-accredited colleges and 540 in accredited colleges for equitable distribution of admissions among all the colleges.If the students are really poor, they will opt for seats which are covered by the fee reimbursement scheme. If the government adoptes this norm, each college can be assured of respectable number of admissions, they say. With the sanction of addition strength, the total number of engineering and pharmacy seats in the MPC stream goes up to more than 3.5 lakh this year but as on date only 2.87 lakh students have applied for Eamcet- 2012. Last year about 3.21 lakh seats were available and more than one lakh seats remained vacant.
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