DTU suspends a third of its M.Tech programmes over ‘poor admissions’

At least 10 out of the 26 M.Tech programmes offered at DTU will not run this year as two-thirds of the sanctioned seats in the 10 programmes did not find any takers.

These 10 programmes that collectively offered about 250 seats are MTech in Bioinformatics; Industrial Biotechnology; Hydraulics & Water Resources Engineering; Geoinformatics; Geotechnical Engineering; Microwave and Optical Commu-nication Engineering; Control and Instrumentation; Power System; Production Engineering; Thermal Engineering. Of these, two programmes are from the department of Biotechnology, three from Civil Engineering, two from Electrical Engineering, two from Mechanical Engineering, and one from Electronics and Communication Engineering.

In an office order released two weeks ago, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, students who have already been admitted to the above suspended programmes will be offered a transfer to another programme, subject to the eligibility criteria and availability of seats in the relevant M.Tech branch. In case vacant seats are not available in the desired branch, the institute has announced that it will refund deposited fees.

DTU is a state university and is counted among the premier engineering schools in the country. It ranked 35 nationally in the latest edition of the National Institute Ranking Framework.

The M.Tech seats remaining vacant have been a persistent issue at engineering colleges, but reputed institutions have been mostly spared. At the IITs, for instance, about a quarter of M.Tech seats fall vacant mainly on account of students leaving the programme midway after finding a job with public sector units or PSUs. However, an IIT has never “suspended” a programme because of dropouts or vacant seats.

At DTU, however, the vacancy problems seem more acute. So much so, that the institute, in an Academic Council meeting in May this year, approved a policy decision that if admissions made in any M.Tech programme are less than one-third of total seats approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), then that engineering branch will remain suspended for that academic year.

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The previous year’s admission brochure had stated that the institute reserves the right to terminate or suspend a specific programme in case a sufficient number of students are not admitted to it. A standing committee, to look into this year’s M.Tech admissions, had recommended this one-third formula, which was approved by the Academic Council.

“We have closed M.Tech courses in the past as well when we’ve had low admissions, but this year we finalised a policy that we’ll close those that have less than one-third admissions. In most cases, students come for programmes in Computer Sciences and IT, and these have 100% admissions. In streams such as Mechanical, Civil, Electrical and Biotech, the number of students in undergraduate courses itself has become low and fewer admissions in postgraduation in these areas are a consequence of that. Private institutes have shut down UG courses in these areas and they’re left only in government colleges,” said DTU’s acting Vice-Chancellor J P Saini, stating that the institute will be looking at renaming and refashioning these courses in direction of Computer Sciences and Machine Learning to draw more admissions.