Over 40% engineering seats vacant in Maharashtra

The vacancies are highest in private unaided colleges. In government colleges, that are most sought after, 122 seats, or 4 per cent of the total, remain vacant in eight institutions across the state. “Increase in the number of admissions in the state is significant as the rise is despite the increase in intake of the Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology,” said Dayanand Meshram, director, DTE.

He added, “Vacancies are more pronounced in unaided colleges. Seats in government colleges are almost full. The vacancies are because of certain courses like Metallurgical Engineering and Biotechnology, which are least preferred as there are fewer jobs in these sectors.”

Out of the 1.44 lakh seats, 64,625 remained unoccupied last year, slightly higher than this year. But with less demand and large number of seats vacant, the total number of seats were reduced to 1.38 lakh this year. Last year, around 17,000 seats were slashed owing to less demand.

“The demand for Computer Science and Information Technology streams remain high, despite job cuts witnessed in the industry in the past year. This is because, these fields hold great promises across the globe. The job cuts were marginal compared to the opportunities they hold,” said Suresh Ukrande, co-ordinator of the faculty of technology, University of Mumbai. “Electronics and Telecommunication and allied branches of Electronics are not in demand anymore simply because there are no jobs in the market,” said Ukrande.

Across the state, demand for technical courses, which include Engineering, Pharmacy and Architecture, and also diploma courses, remain less. The state recorded a vacancy of 44.83 per cent in technical courses this year. Diploma remained the least opted course and less than half of the 1.42 lakh seats were occupied.

“This is because of fewer job opportunities or low-paying jobs available for diploma holders,” said Meshram.