Mumbai: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is experiencing slowdown in the number of applications it has received to start new institutes. The applications received for the year 2012-13 are much lower, as compared to the previous years.

The AICTE has received a total of 400 applications from across the country for new institutes in 2012 in various disciplines, such as technology, engineering, management, architecture, applied art, computer application and hotel management. The same number was 1,067 in 2011 and it stood at 2,176 in 2010.

SS Mantha, acting chairman of the AICTE said that, on the request of few, they have even extended the deadline for submitting proposals to start new institutes for the year 2012. Even then, they do not anticipate much improvement other than a minor increase of 20-30.

According to Mantha, the current economic slowdown could be one reason for such trend. Currently, the market is uncertain and people are trying to play safe by adopting a wait-and-watch policy. Except few top management institutes in US, the rest have vacancies and few of them have upto 50% vacant seats.

Another reason behind this is that, the demand is less in specific areas. Most of the vacancies are in the institutes situated in rural areas, especially in specific branches which are not as attractive in terms of employment opportunities as others. Besides, poor quality of education offered by some institutes is also responsible, Mantha said.

Due to numerous engineering seats lying vacant each year, the AICTE has lowered the entry bar this year, but in spite of this, all the seats in the engineering colleges could not be occupied.

Many states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Orissa has requested the AICTE to not to permit new engineering institutes for the year 2012-13.