The state government has decided to enforce stricter norms for extension of affiliation to self-financing engineering colleges. However, for this year, approval will be granted to all self-financing institutions.

Technical education director Dr J. Latha said the decision was taken as per the recommendations of the expert committee appointed by the directorate of technical education for formulating the criteria for sanctioning new self-financing colleges.

This will be part of the efforts to maintain and improve the quality of technical education, she said.

As per the government order, only self-financing engineering colleges with a minimum of 25 per cent, 30 per cent and 35 per cent pass in the first appearance in all subjects in semesters IV,VI and VIII respectively will be given an extension of the approval in 2013-14.

For the next academic year, the extension of approval will be given to colleges with 30 per cent, 35 per cent and 40 per cent pass respectively.

However, she said, the extension of approval will be granted to all existing self-financing institutions in the state for the year 2012-13.

Only those institutions whose first B Tech batch of students have reached at least the fifth semester of the course and whose results of up to the fourth semester have been published, are eligible to apply for the new B Tech course, or for an increase in the intake in the existing B Tech course.

Only such institutions as have run B.Tech courses for three years and have at least seven faculty members are eligible for B Tech courses, she said.