COIMBATORE: Going soft on its earlier stand, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has now decided to allow functioning of existing technical institutions with same name by adding the name of the village or town or city where the institute was located.
Earlier, the AICTE has decided not to allow same name for technical institution within the State. The council also planned to ask the technical institutions with same name to apply and change their name. But, now the AICTE has decided to allow same name with name of place where the institution was located.
“Applicants shall not use the names of the existing institutions within the State. Existing institutions having the same names run by the same or different society or trust or company within the state or union territory shall at least add the name of the village or town or city, where it is located as an integral part of the name of the institution,” read the AICTE Approval Process Handbook 2018-19.
Due to the similar sounding name of engineering colleges, students faced confusion and got admitted in a college which they do not originally intended to get enrolled into.
A few years ago, while hearing a petition, the Madras High Court had ordered both Anna University and AICTE to publish list of engineering college with similar sounding or identical names along with college code.
The AICTE hahiked the processing fee for technical institutions. Those applying for setting up of new institution under minority, in Jammu and Kashmir, North Easter States and women only institutions have to pay Technical Education Regulatory (TER) charges (earlier processing fee) of `6 crore, which was `5 crore last year.