No let up for students?

AICTE fails two years in a row to provide timely sanctions to colleges, thereby delaying conselling; education minister assures department will work on weekends to solve crisis.

AICTE fails two years in a row to provide timely sanctions to colleges, thereby delaying conselling; education minister assures department will work on weekends to solve crisis.

With the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) failing for the second year in a row to provide sanctions to engineering colleges on time, CET counselling has once again been delayed. While troubled students have raised a hue and cry, Minister of Higher Education V S Acharya assured that the department would work on weekends to conclude counselling on time, in spite of the delay.


Deferred: The counseling, which was supposed to begin on June 27,
will now be held on July 7 at 9 am. Representation pic

Of the 189 engineering colleges, only 140 colleges have received the AICTE sanction. Around 40 top engineering colleges await approval, as AICTE is yet to finalise intake for engineering colleges across the state. The counseling, which was supposed to begin on June 27, will now be held on July 7 at 9 am.

Not as planned
Speaking to MiD DAY, Acharya said, "The AICTE has created a lot of disturbance. Our concern is that we will not be able to begin counselling as we proposed in our brochures. We had received the consensual agreement from private colleges and had included Chitradurga and Belgaum too. It is very sad to know that important certified colleges have been left out this time."

Last year, the CET counselling was delayed twice for the same reason. AICTE had earlier made a statement assuring that a problem such as this would not be repeated again. Despite growing protest from the student fraternity, the AICTE has made no official comment regarding the delay. Acharya however assured, "We will be working even during the weekends just to ease the problem and we will ensure that the counselling concludes on time."

In shambles?
Meanwhile, students have claimed that they received no answer from the counselling authorities. "We have made several calls and are trying to get a confirmation. We came down from different parts of the state to attend the counselling and we just got to know that it has been delayed. Now there is nowhere to go," said K Priyanka, a student. Even as the student community awaits their fate, the education department seems to be taking all measures to not get trapped in another controversy.