22 new engg, 7 pharmacy colleges get AICTE nod

The monsoon may be playing hide and seek but it is raining colleges in Gujarat this year.

On Wednesday, 22 new engineering colleges got approval from the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). Seven new pharmacy colleges will also begin functioning in the state from this academic year.

Of the list of approved colleges, Ahmedabad has bagged three colleges -SAL Institute of Technology and Research Centre, CIPET and Silver Oak College of Engineering and Technology.

Rajkot and Mehsana have got four new colleges each.

Gandhinagar will get three new colleges while, Baroda has bagged two and Surat has got one. Gondal, Panchmahals, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Himmatnagar and Sabarkantha have bagged one college each. With the approval of these 22 colleges, the number of seats in engineering colleges has shot up by nearly 6000 in the state.

Thus the total number of engineering seats available in the state will be more than 32,000 this year. Of the seven new pharmacy colleges which got approval, Gandhinagar and Jamnagar will get one each.
Three colleges will come up in Anand, one each in Sabarkantha and Himmatnagar.  With these the number of seats in pharmacy has gone up to 6000 in the state.

"We have already received 10 letter of acceptance (LOA) while the remaining approval letters are likely to come by Thursday," said MN Patel, vice-chancellor of Gujarat Technological University and member secretary of ACPC.