No takers for engineering seats in Telangana

Hyderabad : The demand for engineering course among students has come down drastically in the State as is evident from the poor response to certificate verification witnessed during the ongoing EAMCET engineering counselling.

The percentage of students appearing for certificate verification in Andhra Pradesh too is very low, though slightly better than in Telangana.

In fact, the decline in engineering admissions started last year itself and several colleges sought permission to wind up their operations. This year, the situation is grimmer as bifurcation is affecting the schemes meant for engineering students.

There are about 1.74 lakh engineering seats under convener quota available in both the States; only 1.21 lakh students have so far attended the counselling.

According to the EAMCET counselling committee data, around 2.34 lakh students qualified this year. While there are around 1.15 lakh seats under convener quota in Andhra Pradesh and 59,515 in Telangana, many of them look destined to be unoccupied.

In Telangana, only 56,000 students out of 88,947 eligible candidates have attended the certificate verification so far. In Andhra Pradesh, only 65,000 students turned against 1.14 lakh eligible candidates.

A total 87,859 students across AP and Telangana selected their options from August 17 till date. Educationists and experts attribute this decline in interest to steps taken against the engineering colleges to improve the quality of facilities and standards.

They opine that the State government's strict action against erring engineering colleges in Telangana might have resulted in a decrease in the number of students enrolling in the State.

Renowned educationist Kancha Illaiah said that this could not be the only reason, but pointed at the poor quality of education being imparted to them as a reason for most students to opt out of engineering.

He said that now students were looking towards pharmacy for their career. In Telangana, there are 315 engineering colleges among which only 141 colleges were permitted to participate in counseling, while the remaining were de-listed. As many as one lakh seats were cut short as a result of stopping those colleges from counseling.

An EAMCET qualified student D Prakash Yadav, who attended the certificate verification and selected his option during the counseling, said that earlier engineering was more sought after as it provided good job opportunities and was a matter of pride.

Meanwhile, college managements have blamed the State Government's stance to delay the release of fee reimbursement as a reason for the steep fall in the number of students enrolling for the engineering course.

They also cite lack of clarity on the recently announced FAST scheme for students as another reason for a decrease in the number of students opting for engineering.

A member of engineering college management's consortium on condition of anonymity said that the State government had refused to reimburse the fee for engineering students citing different reasons and did not clarify on its new scheme. 'This in fact has demoralised several students,' he said.