In a relief to hundreds of students enrolled in BTech courses under now-defunct FYUP of Delhi University, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has finally given its approval to 27 colleges to run the courses.
AICTE has given approval for the 2013-14 batch which had taken admission in the BTech courses, as part of the now defunct Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP).
“We have received a communication from AICTE informing that the approval has been granted to the 27 colleges,” a senior university official said.
BTech programmes in Computer Science, Electronics, Food Technology, Instrumentation Electronics and Polymer Science were launched as part of FYUP, which was last year scrapped following UGC intervention.
The colleges were asked to seek approval from AICTE, the apex advisory body regulating technical education in the country.
With several deadlines lapsing over the months, students had raised concerns over non-approval of the courses with HRD Minister Smriti Irani in February this year who, in turn, had directed the VC to do the needful.
The lack of AICTE approval for the BTech programmes was also a bone of contention between the HRD Ministry and DU VC Dinesh Singh.
Counter viewWhile Singh had maintained that the courses required no AICTE approval as they were being offered by the varsity itself, the ministry countered his views saying the courses should be vetted by the regulator.
In April, AICTE had given the colleges a ‘six-hour’ deadline to submit an affidavit promising that they would address the shortcomings of faculty and infrastructure within the next six months.
The principals had found the deadline to be “impractical”, following which the varsity had taken up the issue with AICTE, which had agreed to take a lenient view of the case.