New Delhi: A recent report by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) states that the number of seats available for admission to the Bachelor of Technology (BTech) programme in India has seen a notable eight-year high after many years of a downfall trend. As per the Indian Express, AICTE has said that the intake that has been approved for BTech 2024-25 admission is about 14.90 lakh, which is a minimum of 18.84 per cent increase from the 2021-22 academic year where it was only 12.54 lakh.
The AICTE report also states that the first rise in the intake was witnessed in the 2022-23 academic year with 2 per cent which is about 12.74 lakh seats, which is then followed by a rise of 5 per cent in the 2023-2024 academic year, resulting in 13.50 lakh seats. In 2024-25, there was a rise of 10 percent. However, earlier, since 2014-15 for most of the years, there was a year-on-year decline when it was 17.05 lakh seats.
Southern states take largest share in rise of seats
The council has informed that the largest share of the rise in seats can be seen mainly from three states of the south which include Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The seat intake in the state of Tamil Nadu is 3,08,686 which was earlier 2,75,830, with Andhra Pradesh at 1,83,532 seats from 1,60,014 in the year 2023-24. In Telangana, the number of seats is recorded at 1,45,557. However, last year it was 1,25,344.
As per the Indian Express, AICTE Member Secretary Rajive Kumar stated that the increase in numbers is mainly because of ‘approvals granted for engineering and technology courses for working professionals. Removal of an embargo on adding new seats in BTech programmes in 2023-24’.
Kumar also highlighted that in the year 2024-2025, the total approved institutes for UG engineering admission is 2,906. This year a total of 1,256 institutes have been approved for an increase which included programme approvals for working professionals as well.
BTech admission seats as per AICTE
| Year | Seats (in lakh) |
| 2014-15 | 17.05 |
| 2015-16 | 16.30 |
| 2016-17 | 15.56 |
| 2017-18 | 14.75 |
| 2018-19 | 14.04 |
| 2019-20 | 13.28 |
| 2020-21 | 12.86 |
| 2021-22 | 12.54 |
| 2022-23 | 12.74 |
| 2023-24 | 13.50 |
| 2024-25 | 14.90 |
