The 174 engineering and pharmacy colleges denied permission by the JNTU Hyderabad to admit students have heaved a sigh of relief with the Supreme Court asking the Government to conduct second phase of counselling as it would help them in the long run though the benefit this year is almost nothing.
These colleges can now admit at least a few students to ensure that there is a continuation in their admission process and command respect from the students during the next year’s counselling. Colleges fear that if there are no admissions this year students would automatically reject them and that would be end of the road.
The Supreme Court also said that second phase would be limited to students who have not joined any college and those already admitted would not have a sliding option. It further said that the first semester has to be completed as per AICTE schedule with ensuring 527 hours of academic work.
The judgment is likely to benefit around 12,000 students, and among these around 3,000 were not allotted seats in the first phase counselling due to various reasons and the remaining did not report to the colleges despite being offered seats.
“Though we are totally not satisfied with the outcome, it will at least keep us in the race for next year. Moreover, some of the good colleges that lost out due to faulty and motivated inspections of JNTU will benefit at least next year,” said Suneel, representative of Telangana Engineering and Professional Colleges Managements Association.
The JNTU Registrar, N.V. Ramana Rao said that the Supreme Court granted conditional permission for second phase of counselling. “The colleges now have to go through re-inspection by teams from IIT Hyderabad and BITS Pilani Hyderabad as per the Supreme Court order,” he said.
Several colleges that fulfilled majority conditions and maintained good facilities but yet were not granted affiliated by the JNTU for various reasons have nothing to fear. But colleges without the requisite infrastructure and faculty will have to worry as the teams from IIT Hyderabad and BITS Pilani Hyderabad will are expected to act tough on the facilities part.
