With just 11 out of 240 seats filled this year Shri Tulja Bhavani Engg College faces closure
To stop the closure of a private engineering institute in Osmanabad, which is facing 90-95% vacancy since past couple of years, Maharashtra government plans to acquire it by granting "government" status.
The institution, which is likely to get the coveted tag, is Shri Tulja Bhavani College of Engineering, Tuljapur which is being run by the Tuljapur Devsthan Trust. The trust has been seeking the government tag for the institute since 2012 when the then district collector Pravin Gedam wrote to the government for the first time.
An announcement in this regard was made on Thursday by Vinod Tawde, the minister of technical education. "Despite having infrastructure and other facilities in place, the college faces closure due to lack of students. Instead of letting it shut down, we are considering to make it a government institution," said Tawde.
This is being considered as a significant move as other student-hungry engineering institutes will also seek similar benefit to run the business. Out of 1.15 lakh engineering seats in the state, only 87,000 have been filled this year, says government's own statistics. This means, every fourth engineering seat in Maharashtra will remain vacant. There is huge demand for state-run institutions but they are very few.
"Almost all seats in government engineering colleges are filled every year mainly because they have better infrastructure, qualified faculty and offer affordable education. The private institutes are not so lucky and those which operate in outskirts and in rural areas face more trouble in attracting students," admits a government official.
The government, however, clarifies that consideration is because of the fact that the Shri Tulja Bhavani College is being run by the temple trust — a government administered body.
The college was established in 1983 and is still the only engineering institute in Tuljapur but is failing to attract students of late. As per the college website, it is rated as 'B' grade by the Directorate Technical Education.
Prof Ravindra Adekar, head of the computer science and engineering department in the college who is also the UG admission in-charge, told dna: "This year up to third round, the college has got only 11 students out of 240 seats in four branches. Last year, the figure was 30."
Citing reasons for students' crisis, Prof Aderkar says, "More and more youngsters want to study in Mumbai and Pune cities now. That's why many colleges are facing trouble and some of them have even close down. The government status will help us to revive."
The College offers four branches in BTech-Computer engineering, civil, electronics and Telecommunications and mechanical. Besides, the college also runs diploma and MTech courses. Students' strength is poor in those courses as well.
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