Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 2: In a major decision, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), a statutory body dealing with technical education in the country, has enhanced the seats of the Government College of Engineering and Technology, Jammu to 300. In this way, the seats of only engineering college in Government sector in Jammu and Kashmir have been brought at par with the combined intake capacity of both the Government Medical Colleges.
Reliable sources told EXCELSIOR that Appellate Committee of the AICTE in its meeting held on April 30 gave its nod to the proposal of Jammu and Kashmir regarding increase in seats of Government College of Engineering and Technology (GCET) to 300 from present strength of 160 seats. With this much-awaited decision, the State Government’s dream of producing more technically sound human resource would get practical shape.
The process to seek AICTE approval for increasing seats to 300 was initiated several years back and many teams of the AICTE, which is a statutory body dealing with technical education in the country under Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development, visited the GCET Jammu to assess whether the infrastructure was in consonance with the guidelines laid down for increasing the seats of any engineering college in the country.
Every time the visiting teams pointed out one after another shortcomings and stressed the GCET authorities to come up with the required infrastructure in order to get its proposal translated into reality, sources said, adding the process vis-à-vis increasing seats to 300 received major boost when the only Government engineering college of the State was shifted from Old University Campus to new and spacious campus at Chak Bhalwal in the outskirts of Jammu city.
The several years long struggle for getting GCET’s seats enhanced has finally yielded positive results with AICTE giving approval albeit with certain conditions vis-à-vis constructing more infrastructure to cope up with the increase in the strength of students.
The demand for increasing seats was justified as 160 seats—30 each in Electrical, Mechanical, Civil and Electronics streams and 40 in Computer Sciences were grossly inadequate to meet the requirement of students opting for various streams of engineering, sources said. Due to insufficient seats, the students aspiring for career in engineering had no option than to go to Punjab and other States. Now more students would get accommodated and ultimately the GCET would be in a position to produce more technically trained manpower.
According to the sources, now the ball is in the court of Jammu and Kashmir Government to decide when to start admission for additional 140 seats as even the approval of University of Jammu to which the GCET is affiliated with has already been obtained.
“Moreover, the decision regarding enhancement in number of seats has come at a time when Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) is all set to conduct Common Entrance Test (CET)”, sources said, adding “the State Government is only required to convey to the BOPEE about making admissions for these additional seats from the forthcoming academic session”.
When contacted, Secretary Higher Education, Sarita Chauhan confirmed that AICTE has increased the seats of GCET Jammu and said, “now there will be 60 seats in all the five streams and more students would get opportunity to shape their future from the platform of only Government engineering college in Jammu and Kashmir”.
Responding to another question, she said, “Minister for Higher Education would take decision on making admission for these additional seats after considering all the relevant aspects”.
With the increase in seats, the Government would have to re-think about making Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) functional from GCET campus as was announced by the Chief Minister as co-existing GCET and IIT would create many problems. Moreover, only J&K students would get benefit of increased seats of GCET as compared to IIT for which all India level entrance examination is conducted.
Not only for students of Jammu region, GCET Jammu is also giving preference to students of Kashmir valley and Ladakh as getting engineering degrees from GCET is less expensive as compared to obtaining degrees from institutions outside the State.
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