THE B.TECH IN NUMBERS

Seats, placements, enrolment - what the AICTE data says about undergraduate engineering programmes in India.

- R. Radhika

In the last five years, as undergraduate engineering seats gradually reduced, a vast majority of seats still went vacant in B.Tech programmes across the country, shows All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) data.

The all-India capacity utilisation, AICTE data shows, has been only about half of the seats available in 2021-22, with 55 percent enrolment.

While the approved overall intake in 2021-22 was 25.39 lakh, just over 14 lakh students were enrolled, indicating that the supply of engineering seats is far in excess of demand. According to AICTE norms, “approved intake” means the maximum number of students that can be admitted in a course, excluding the supernumerary seats.

The latest All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) report also indicates a 10 percent drop in enrolment in undergraduate engineering degree courses. As per the AISHE, in courses like B.Tech and Bachelor of Engineering (BE), enrolment decreased by 10.3 percent – from 40,85,321 to 36,63,685 – between 2016 and 2021.

In the 2020-21 academic year, enrolment was 53 percent of the total capacity of 24 lakh seats. Meanwhile, states with highest seat shares in India recorded an average of 64 percent graduation rate in the batch of 2018-19. The AICTE data shows that the placements in the same states recorded an average of 60 percent at the end of B.Tech programme in the same year.

The table below shows the numbers for each year. The approved seats have increased in the last three years; however, the vacancy has also increased with it. Between 2019 and 2021, the vacancy has increased by 12 percent, from 9,84,264 in 2019-20 to 11,28,501 in 2021-22.