BENGALURU: Contrary to the expectations of industry and institutions, of a revival in traditional engineering courses, several colleges in Karnataka have approached the Higher Education Department seeking either a reduction in seats or complete closure of mechanical and civil engineering courses. Instead, institutions are pushing to increase intake for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) programmes, officials told TNIE.
This year, admissions to the mechanical branch were anticipated to significantly rise under the management quota, mainly due to growing opportunities in the manufacturing sector, especially defence. Colleges also expected a similar demand for government quota seats as well.
A senior official said that while AI courses were already in high demand last year, the interest has grown even more this year. “This is largely due to the increasing number of job opportunities in AI-related fields, strong demand from the IT industry, and a growing awareness among students about the future potential of emerging technologies like ML and data science,” the official mentioned.
For academic year 2025–26, a total of 1,35,969 engineering seats have been made available across 217 colleges in Karnataka, including 64,047 seats under the government quota. This is a drop of 5,313 seats compared to last year. In 2024-25, there were 1,41,009 seats across 245 colleges, with 66,663 under the government quota.
The final seat matrix is yet to be released and officials confirmed that the decision to reduce or close certain courses has already been made. Any increase in seats — especially for AI and related branches — will be reflected only after all colleges submit their data. “Some colleges are yet to upload the seat matrix, and a few are still waiting for AICTE approval. Once that is done, the total number of available seats may rise,” an official explained.
While the government had initially proposed to freeze the number of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) seats, a large number is still available this year. A total of 33,813 CSE seats have been offered, including 15,754 under the government quota. Last year, there were 35,013 seats in CSE, with 16,280 in the government quota. In addition, 18,492 seats are available in Electronics and Communication Engineering, and 8,538 in Information Science and Engineering, this year.