Core engineering branches saw a decline in number of seats in engineering colleges this year compared to last year with several colleges preferring to cut down the seats in favour of new and specialised courses in the computer science stream.
Several colleges reduced their seats even for a top course like electronics and communication engineering (ECE) that used to find favour with toppers five or six years ago. The seats have been reduced from 13,397 to 12,582 this year.
A similar trend was noted in other core branches like mechanical engineering, civil engineering and electrical engineering with even top colleges seeking permission for seat reduction in those branches.
In the electrical and electronics engineering (EEE) course, seats went down to 6,366 from 6,907 last year. Civil engineering also suffered with 5,766 seats available this year compared to 6,378 last year. Mechanical engineering, once considered a preferred branch for toppers, saw seats being slashed to 5,355 now from 5,980 seats last year.
Computer branches
On the other hand, computer science engineering (CSE), which has been the first choice of students for the past five years, saw an increase in seats with the colleges seeking additional numbers to accommodate the growing demand. The number increased to 16,801 this year from 16,681 last year. Information Technology (INF) branch, which is considered equivalent to CSE, also saw a slight enhancement in numbers from 4,650 last year to 4,713 this year.
Interestingly, niche courses within the CSE stream like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science and Cyber Security also saw reduction in seats this year, but the numbers were still high compared to other core branches. For example, CSE (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) has 5,037 seats compared to 5,310 last year; CSE (Data Science) seats were reduced from 3,213 last year to 3,003 this year; CSE (Cyber Security) saw reduction from 1,806 seats to 1,630 seats and CSE (IoT) also has lesser seats at 1,029 from 1,281 last time.
B.Tech in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, however, saw a good rise from 168 seats to 420 this year while mining engineering also registered an upsurge to 388 seats from 328 last year. Chemical engineering with 246 seats and aeronautical engineering with 210 seats stayed stable with no change in numbers. Overall, this year, 66,290 seats are on offer in all branches of engineering compared to 69,116 seats last year.
