AICTE APPROVAL PROCESS YEAR 2020-21
New Delhi : A pragmatic shift in the annual approval process was necessitated and adopted by
AICTE by innovating the entire process through a novel online mechanism for undertaking
the scrutiny of documents and virtual visit of the technical institutions. The lockdown
imposed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 had created severe challenges to all sectors of
governance. AICTE converted the current crisis into grand opportunity by adopting e-
governance mechanisms thereby reducing the costs with no travel and enhancing the
reliability, accuracy and overall transparency of the regulatory process.
The approval process for year 2020-2021 was a considerable departure from the
previous years on several counts. Due to the imposition and subsequent extensions of
lockdown, the approval process was delayed. It was initiated in the month of May 2020 and
was completed in end Jun 2020. Moreover, the rigorous scrutiny which heretofore was
undertaken physically at various regional offices was conducted via an online process. This
involved using online Video-Conferencing for stakeholders to connect, verification of
infrastructure & campus facilities virtually and uploading digitally signed documents.
Even though new Management and Polytechnic Engineering Institutes have added
seats, there has been reduction in AICTE Approved Seats for Academic Year 2020-2021
which is attributable to the following:
1. As per recent Supreme Court judgement, for functioning of existing & setting up of
new Architecture and Pharmacy colleges, approval of only ‘Council of Architecture’ and
‘Pharmacy Council of India’ respectively will be mandatory w.e.f. Academic Year 2020-2021.
As a result, the approval of AICTE has been made non-mandatory. Consequently, many of
these colleges have withdrawn their affiliation & approval from AICTE resulting in bulk
reduction of seats. Effectively, the seats of pharmacy & architecture have now been taken
over by their respective regulatory bodies.
2. Few AICTE Approved Colleges have not sought approval this year in view of large
number of seats lying vacant over the last 5 years thus making it unviable for continuing the
institution.
3. As per AICTE Policy & Guidelines, there has been 50% reduction in seats in colleges
where, enrolment has been less than 30 percent of approved intake consecutively for last 5
years.
