BANGALORE: Eight engineering colleges, all approved by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), have been pulled up by Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), which has threatened to disaffiliate them if they did not improve their infrastructure soon. While one college has been disaffiliated, another has been served notice.

While the Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell had allotted seats to these colleges based on AICTE approval, VTU's Local Inspection Committees (LICs) reportedly questioned the cell's decision when the infrastructure at these colleges was poor. "AICTE had approved these colleges although VTU and the State Government had not recommended them. The CET Cell had included the seats in the matrix and admitted students," a top VTU official told The Hindu.

The university decided to get tough with the colleges when it found that even after three LIC visits, the infrastructure in these colleges had not improved.

"The LICs will conduct one more inspection and if they find no improvement, the colleges will be disaffiliated," the VTU official said.

Despite AICTE's approval being granted, VTU had not permitted the city-based S.C.T. Institute of Technology to start a B.E. Aeronautical Engineering course.

The reason: lack of adequate facilities even for the existing courses. The university, which had to conduct examinations and award degrees, could not be held responsible later if the graduates were not qualified, the official said.

It had questioned AICTE's "unilateral" approval of the institutions without consulting either the varsity or the Government, he added.

AICTE chairman Damodar Acharya said recently that colleges and courses were approved only after a thorough inspection, and it was the universities' job to monitor their daily activities.

Prof. Acharya had even sought to justify AICTE's approval of more colleges, although the number of unfilled engineering seats this year went beyond 8,000. According to him, it was a "strategy" to create shortage of students because then candidates will not rush to substandard institutions. To attract students, these colleges will be forced to improve their quality.

The same logic was applied to Tamil Nadu, which had 20,000 unfilled seats and Andhra Pradesh, where about 15,000 engineering seats were left vacant this year.

AICTE's job, as Prof. Acharya put it, was to create opportunities and that was the only way to allow the market to operate.

Trapped in the process were several Karnataka students who had selected seats in the eight engineering colleges now under the VTU scrutiny.

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