DTU Succumbs To Scanty Admissions, Suspends 10 MTech Courses!

Engineering is the passion of thousands of students. Every year lakhs of students from all over India take the Joint Engineering Examination (JEE) to obtain admission to the premier engineering colleges. But when it comes to higher education in India, most of engineers back out, leaving even the top engineering colleges with vacant seats for MTech courses. For the year 2022-23, DTU or Delhi Technological University is suspending one-third of its Master’s programmes because of less number of admissions.

No takers for MTech programmes

10 out of the 26 MTech programmes offered at Delhi Technological University will be suspended this year as two-thirds of the sanctioned seats in these programmes remained vacant. The 10 programmes include:

Mtech Programmes	Seats Sanctioned
Bioinformatics	25
Industrial Biotechnology	30
Hydraulics and Water Resources Engineering	24
Geoinformatics	18
Gerotechnical Engineering	25
Microwave and Optical Communication Engineering	25
Control and Instrumentation	25
Power System	25
Production Engineering	25
Thermal Engineeering	25
Total: 232 seats

As per the DTU office order, students who have enrolled in the suspended programmes can transfer to other programmes subject to the availability of seats and eligibility. If this doesn’t work out for the student, the deposited fees shall be refunded.

Why are students reluctant to go for MTech?

Vacant seats in MTech programmes is not a new issue. In the past several years, many engineering colleges including IITs have faced insufficient admissions in MTech courses. Reasons can be attributed to students leaving the courses after finding jobs in public sector units (PSUs), reluctance to go for higher studies after placement in high-paying corporate jobs, preference for pursuing Master's from foreign universities, etc. However, even though IITs too face the issue of low admission rates in Mtech programmes, none of the IITs has ever suspended a programme due to vacant seats.

Commenting on the matter, J P Saini, Vice Chancellor of DTU said,

“We have closed M.Tech courses in the past as well when we’ve had low admissions, but this year we finalized a policy that we’ll close those that have less than one-third admissions. In most cases, students come for programmes in Computer Sciences and IT, and these have 100% admissions. In streams such as Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, and Biotech, the number of students in undergraduate courses itself has become low and fewer admissions in postgraduation in these areas are a consequence of that. Private institutes have shut down UG courses in these areas and they’re left only in government colleges.”

Recently a standing committee was formed to look into 2022-23 M.Tech admissions. It had recommended the said one-third formula, which was approved by the Academic Council.

Despite being a state university, DTU is considered among the premier engineering schools in India and has ranked 35th in the latest National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) edition. An engineering school of this stature suspending its Mtech programmes, highlights major concerns regarding higher education in the country and dampens the objective of promoting R&D in India.

Shreeya Thakur

Sr. Associate Content Writer at Unstop

I am a biotechnologist-turned-content writer and try to add an element of science in my writings wherever possible. Apart from writing, I like to cook, read and travel.