The Karnataka government is set to introduce a significant change in the admission process for certain engineering degree courses, starting from the upcoming academic year. The state's Higher Education Council has decided to regulate admissions to specific streams where student demand has consistently exceeded the number of available seats approved by the national technical education body.
Five Engineering Streams Under New Regulation
The council's decision, made during a recent meeting chaired by Minister for Higher Education Dr. M.C. Sudhakar, targets five core engineering disciplines. The streams to be regulated are Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI & ML), Data Science, Cyber Security, and Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE). This move aims to bring order to the admission process and ensure that institutions fill seats only in programs that have official approval.
Currently, many engineering colleges in Karnataka admit students to these popular branches based on the total intake approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for the institution, rather than for each specific program. This has led to a situation where colleges offer more seats in high-demand courses than what is formally sanctioned, creating a regulatory gap.
Aligning Admissions with AICTE Approval
The core of the new policy is to strictly link the Common Entrance Test (CET) counselling and seat allocation process to the program-wise intake numbers granted by AICTE. From the 2024-25 academic session, the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) will be instructed to allocate seats only according to the branch-specific sanctions. This means if a college has approval for 60 seats in Computer Science and 120 in Mechanical Engineering, it cannot admit 100 students to Computer Science during counselling by using seats from other branches.
This step is seen as a corrective measure to ensure transparency and compliance with national norms. It will directly impact how seats are distributed during the centralized counselling process, making the system more accountable and aligned with the actual infrastructure and faculty approvals for each discipline.
Rationale and Expected Impact
The decision stems from an observed imbalance between student preference and officially sanctioned capacity. Streams like Computer Science and Electronics and Communication have perennially high demand, leading colleges to informally shift seats from less popular branches to meet this demand. The new regulation seeks to curb this practice.
The government believes this will also encourage colleges to seek proper approvals for expanding intake in sought-after streams, rather than operating in a grey area. For students, it promises a more transparent admission process where the seat matrix during counselling will accurately reflect the legally approved intake for each course at every institution.
The implementation of this rule from the next academic year gives colleges and the Karnataka Examination Authority a short window to adjust their processes. It represents a significant shift towards standardizing engineering admissions in the state and ensuring that growth in technical education follows a structured, approved path.
