Hyderabad: The All-India Council for Technical Education has retained its regulatory powers over engineering and management colleges for the ensuing academic year (2014-15), following the interim orders issued by the Supreme Court on April 17, 2014.
There was uncertainty over who would control these colleges, ever since the Supreme Court delivered it’s verdict in April last year. The SC had ruled that AICTE cannot regulate engineering colleges affiliated to a university, since it was only an “advisory body” as per the AICTE Act.
Following this, the University Grants Commission took over regulatory powers and asked affiliated universities to grant approvals for these colleges from 2014-15 in the place of AICTE. The UGC had even imposed a ban on granting new colleges and on enhancing intake, which is being strongly opposed by college managements.
“The SC had issued this interim order on April 17 based on the petition filed by Odisha Technical Colleges’ Association. The SC ruled that AICTE can now proceed with its regulatory powers and sanction approvals for technical institutions. It asked AICTE to issue notification in this regard within 10 days. We welcome the SC order as UGC cannot regulate these colleges since it is just an agency meant to offer grants to universities and lacks technical expertise. A national body like AICTE’s control over technical colleges is necessary to ensure quality in technical education,” said Nimmatoori Ramesh, chairman, Consortium of Engineering Colleges Managements Association of AP.
Mr Ramesh said a bench of Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice Kurian Joseph issued these interim orders on April 17. The association, which has over 2,000 member colleges, was apprehensive about their future as UGC had accorded regulatory powers to state universities.
