Only half of the 700 engineering colleges in the state fulfil the requirements of faculty and infrastructure laid down in the rules. Students and parents have no way of knowing which colleges abide by the rules and which do not, information that should be lawfully available to them. Recently, inspections carried out by JNTU-Hyderabad, under which 300 engineering colleges function, revealed that 195 colleges do not comply with the norms on faculty and infrastructure. Similar is the situation with engineering colleges under the purview of JNTUs in Anantapur and Kakinada.
The strong lobby of engineering college managements (a majority of colleges are owned by politicians) are exerting pressure on the state government not to disclose the list of “unfit” colleges. Succumbing to this pressure, all the three JNTUs are maintaining utmost secrecy on this issue. This is clearly an attempt to hoodwink students rather than get the colleges to clean up their act.
The colleges enjoy political clout. For instance, the Avanthi Group is owned by Congress MLA M. Srinivas Rao, Maheshwara Group belongs to Congress MLA A. Maheshwar Reddy, TRR Group belongs to Congress leader T. Rammohan Reddy, Aditya Group is owned by Congress MLA N. Sesha Reddy, NRI Group is owned by TD MLC A. Rajendra Prasad, the Nova Group is owned by brother of Congress MLA M. Srinivas Rao, the Pyday Group belongs to Rosaiah’s son-in-law, Alpha Group is owned by YSRC’s Bhooma Nagi Reddy, Holy Mary Group is owned by YSRC’s Varaprasad Reddy.