Hyderabad: Engineering colleges cutting down their intakes en masse could mean a reduction of nearly 35,000 seats in Telangana from the current total intake capacity of 1.76 lakh. Colleges are using this strategy to satisfy faculty norms to ensure that they obtain affiliation from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad for the upcoming academic year.

Faculty requirements are decided as per the course intake of colleges. As per AICTE norms, student-teacher ratio in undergraduate engineering courses should be 1:15 while the cadre ratio of professor to associate professor to assistant professor should be 1:2:6.

However, course intakes in most engineering colleges in both TS and AP are too high. For instance, if a college has 120 Electronics and Communications Engineering seats, it would need eight faculty members with at least one professor and two associate professors while the remaining can be assistant professors. But because of high intakes, most colleges are unable to fulfil these norms, attracting the ire of the affiliating university. JNTU-H had disaffiliated 143 Engineering colleges this year for lack of faculty and other infrastructure. But in a bid to get back, colleges are now cutting down their intakes so they can fulfil faculty student norms. Estimates suggest that as many as 35,000 seats could be removed for next year.

Gautam Rao, chairman, Telangana Engineering and Professional College Managements Association  said, “When the government carried out inspections in December, they considered only July faculty data. They didn’t consider if we had added faculty by December. Almost 200 Engineering colleges are now applying for reduction in seats. If the government considers as on date faculty data and carries out inspections again with the reduced intake, most colleges will get affiliations.” However, many colleges are also looking to reduce their respective intakes just for the upcoming academic year and increase it again for subsequent years.