TNN, Hyderabad Edition, 01st Sep 2008

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh has achieved a rare distinction. On one hand, it has the highest number of engineering colleges in the country, 532. And on the other, 50 colleges logged 'zero' admission after the first phase of engineering counselling on Sunday. These 50 colleges are among 175 institutes which got sanction this academic year.

Incidentally, many of these colleges are in rural areas. While opting for colleges, students seemed to have opted for cities and major towns. Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Guntur seem to be the the most.

At the end of the first phase of counselling, of 1,10,337 seats up for grabs only 72,555 were filled.

Apart from scepticism of would-be engineers, some colleges which scored blanks had joined the counselling process at the fag end as they got sanctions and academic affiliation late.

For this academic year, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body which accords permission to start professional colleges, had set June 30 as the deadline for sanction. However, inspections and sanctions got delayed with colleges having to wait for affiliation even after the stipulated time.

"Every year, some colleges get into the counselling process in the last minute after AICTE sanction. As a result, many toppers do not opt for them," an Eamcet counselling team member said.

"The students are also very selective about the stream. Only a few courses are hot favourites. Hence, they do not opt for colleges which do not have these options," JNTU vice-chancellor and chairman, Eamcet committee, D N Reddy told 'TOI'.

Computer science and electronics and communication engineering (ECE) courses had most number of takers, while civil and mechanical streams also picked up this year.

Over 15,000 seats are unfilled in colleges across the state. Eamcet officials said that these colleges would be included in the web-based counselling which will go on till September 4, in order to try and fill up the vacant seats.

Though MBA and MCA colleges offer a better picture, there are vacant seats even in them too. Of nearly 60,000 seats which are available under the convener quota, 45,125 seats have been filled, leaving only 3,425 vacant. "Over 600 colleges participated in ICET counselling, considering this, the number of vacant seats are not alarming," ICET convener D N Reddy said.

Thirty-five colleges got sanction late. These colleges would be included in the web-based counselling which will begin on September 1.

Students would be able to exercise their options in the web-based counselling from September 1 to 8.

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At the end of the first phase of counselling, of 1,10,337 seats up for grabs only 72,555 were filled.

Computer science and electronics and communication engineering (ECE) courses had most number of takers, while civil and mechanical streams also picked up this year