Bengaluru: Despite engineering admissions losing demand, with vacancies increasing every year, the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has received 10 applications from private managements to start new colleges for the academic year 2026-27.
Of the ten applications, six are from Bengaluru, one each from Doddaballapur in Bengaluru Rural, Chikkodi in Belagavi, Hubballi and Vijayapura. Each college has sought an intake of 120 seats.
Higher Education Minister Dr MC Sudhakar said he was surprised by the applications.
“I don’t know why people are setting up new engineering colleges. I was surprised to learn that even this year there are some applications before VTU,” he said.
“Every year some private engineering colleges are handing over the seats to the Karnataka Examinations Authority as they were unable to fill the seats themselves,” he added.
Although admissions have fallen and seats remain vacant, Karnataka has seen 25 new engineering colleges open in the last five years, with only one closed.
VTU Vice Chancellor Vidyashankar S called this a positive trend. “When the industry talks about threats to jobs due to Artificial Intelligence, the number of new colleges coming in shows a positive sign,” he said. “In the last four years we have received four to five applications to set up new colleges, but this year the number has doubled. This clearly shows that we need engineers, with up-to-date skills and knowledge for the current industry requirements,” he added.
In 2025, over 15,000 engineering seats remained vacant, of which 9,000 were from Computer Science and allied subjects.
