Shunned by students, engineering colleges turn shooting spots

​Hyderabad: Scores of engineering colleges around Hyderabad and adjacent districts are fast turning into a unique infrastructure for making movies. Rejected by thousands of students, these college buildings dot the rural patches in Ghatkesar, Ibrahimpatnam, Keesara, Moinabad and Chilukur. Some of the colleges have good potential to shoot horror movies.

The huge buildings of academic, laboratories and practical and administrative blocks are turning into creepy places. "After, 4 pm, except me, even the skeletal staff who are still around would not dare to stay on the campus. One would not see anyone after 6 pm in the area," said Srinivas Gowd, (name changed), working as a Chowkidar at an engineering college in Ghatkesar.

"In all, there are nearly 20 students who have visited the college in the last week of June, this year. After that, none has come. Two of the faculty members come in the morning and leave by afternoon and the college correspondent visits once in a blue moon," he said.

Vouching for this, Suresh Reddy, a fresh M.Tech graduate wanted to take up teaching job in the college, said that he was not a lone case. There are few colleges in the vicinity where you don't see more than a group of students here and there. In some colleges, the allotments did not cross even 40 per cent of the total intake.

"There are students who are allotted but they have not yet reported to the college," he said. Krishna Murthy, a faculty member in a private engineering in Batasingaram, said, "Only 25 students took admission out of an intake of around 250 seats in five branches of engineering in the college."That means one-fourths of the classrooms in the entire academic block remain empty."

When contacted officials in the Directorate of Admissions in the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University - Hyderabad (JNTU-H) said, "Around eight colleges have got zero admissions. Nearly 43 colleges got only around 10 per cent of seats filled. Some of the prominent colleges, who boast of accreditation records and achievements are forced to reduce the number of sections as even those students allotted seats under the convener quota have not turned up," said a senior official from JNTU-H.

The way students are refusing to take admissions in some colleges in Chilkuru, Patancheru, Moinabad and Ibrahimpatanam are forcing the managements whether to run or shut down their institutions. The managements are finding it difficult to convert the huge college buildings constructed amidst the rural patches for some other use.

This trend of students not showing up is continuing for the third consecutive year in engineering admissions. Nearly 17,850 seats under the convener quota remained vacant. In addition to this, another 5,000 students who were allotted seats have not reported to the colleges so far, the university sources said.