CHENNAI: Starting April, Anna University will inspect the infrastructure of affiliated private engineering colleges with low enrolment and placement rates. The inspection will be detailed and no leniency will be shown if a college was found lacking in infrastructure, university officials said. The university has 494 affiliated colleges.
Speaking to TNIE, Vice Chancellor R Velraj said enrolment exceeding 80% reflected a college’s sound infrastructure. “As such, we will not waste time conducting physical inspection at such colleges. Instead, we will focus on those colleges with low enrolments and placement rates.”
He said that, this year, no leniency would be shown to the colleges found without enough faculty, classrooms, laboratories, etc. It’s better if such colleges were shut as they would only be creating problems for the university and students, Velraj added.
Last year, after a gap of two years due to the pandemic, Anna University inspected the infrastructure of all its affiliated colleges. It was found that almost 50% of the colleges lacked necessary infrastructure. Subsequently, the university sent show-cause notices to 225 engineering colleges. A majority of them resolved the issues and submitted compliance reports.
“Last year, affiliation of only four colleges weren’t renewed over lack of infrastructure. We were a bit lenient as the colleges had just reopened after the pandemic. This year, however, we will thoroughly check the infrastructure of the colleges, especially of those that failed the inspection last year,” said a university official.
The officials said that last year, the colleges were given ample time to resolve their shortcomings and show-cause notices were issued twice or even thrice. This year, however, the affiliation of colleges without enough infrastructure would not be renewed.