76 engineering colleges not permitted to increase intake for academic year 2024-25; 11 face closure

Anna University denies no-objection certificates to 87 engineering colleges, 11 facing closure, due to low student intake.

Anna University has decided not to give no-objection certificates to 87 engineering colleges for additional intake of students for the academic year 2024-25. Eleven among them are staring at closure and the students in these colleges could be transferred to other institutions.

Vice-Chancellor R. Velraj said the colleges that were facing closure had been registering less than 5% intake for four years. “For the first three years the average was less than 5% and based on that we issued show cause notices last year and they were given conditional affiliation,” he said. The colleges were advised to improve their performance. Since there was no improvement, the syndicate approved their closure.

As many as 76 colleges will not be given opportunities to increase seats. The university will analyse the performance in the coming weeks before finalising affiliation requests.  At the beginning of the last academic year 41 colleges had less than 10% admission. Of them in 16-19 colleges claimed that the admission rate had risen. Though V-C had proposed closure of colleges with less than 10% admission, the Syndicate decided to focus on colleges with less than 5% admission.  

“We must see if the admission has increased this year (in colleges which had admission above 5% and below 10%). When we give affiliation in July if the admission rates have not increased this year, we are going to deny them permission to admit students,” Mr. Velraj said.

The All India Council for Technical Education has permitted well-performing engineering colleges to increase intake without conditions. This would mean that the students would have enough seats to choose from. The university has started issuing no objection certificates to colleges seeking affiliation if AICTE approved of their request for increased intake. 

Colleges with less than 25% admission would automatically shut down as an increase in seats in good colleges would accelerate the closure of such colleges, an official said.