The re-inspection of 164 engineering colleges that were permitted by the Supreme Court to participate in the second phase of engineering counselling will begin on Wednesday.
The Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) Hyderabad officials said that they were allowed conditional allotment of seats and the court asked them to complete the inspection by December 31 involving experts from the IIT Hyderabad and BITS Pilani Hyderabad.
“We will complete the inspections by December 15,” N.V. Ramana Rao, Registrar said. In a recent meeting the IIT Hyderabad and BITS Pilani experts were briefed about the inspection process in view of the Supreme Court orders.
Prof. Rao said that no JNTUH faculty member would be part of the inspection process.
The teams would contain experts from IIT-H and BITS Pilani apart from an expert from universities other than JNTUH depending on the area.
Prof. Rao said the University has no intention to close down the colleges as was alleged, but the effort was only to streamline the facilities keeping students’ interests in view. He said out of the 174 colleges, which were denied affiliation during the first phase, 10 colleges have closed on their own and the inspection would be carried in the remaining colleges.
Controversy arose when the JNTUH decided not to give affiliation to 174 colleges on the eve of the engineering counselling citing lack of requisite facilities and sending the college managements and students into a tizzy.
However, the colleges approached the High Court but didn’t get favour response and finally, it was the Supreme Court which directed the JNTUH to conduct second phase of counselling to allow the colleges to participate in the counselling process.
The second phase counselling was opened to only a few thousand candidates as the Apex Court made it clear that those who were allotted seats in the first phase cannot participate.
