The Ministry of Human Resource and Development has ordered to shut down the centres and courses of all the centrally-funded technical institutions which are not very popular and has seen a decrease in the number of the applicants. Also, coming in the ambit is Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).
The announcement came into notice when Mahendra Nath Pandey, the minister of state for HRD, told the Rajya Sabha about it. “All Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs) which are participating in joint counsellings have been asked to review the position of vacant seats in the last three years and to revise the number of seats in each discipline after considering employment opportunities, national requirements, available infrastructure and scope for future,” he said, while answering a question.
After conducting various rounds of counselling last year, around 3,000 seats including IITs, NITs and few centrally funded technical institutes were not filled. Including several IITs, as many as 73 seats were unfilled last year.
Scraping all the courses and centres which have seen less number of applicants in past three years, the Ministry is now focusing on providing better employment opportunities and therefore, has asked these institutes to properly examine the market opportunities and requirement of higher research before introducing new courses and disciplines.
“New courses and disciplines may be introduced only after analysing market opportunity, employability and requirement of higher education/ research/ entrepreneurship. CFTIs may also consider closure of some disciplines or keep them in abeyance for a few years after following the due process,” added Pandey.
