mumbai

Updated: Jan 06, 2019 16:57 IST

The number of colleges joining Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University (BATU), in Raigad, a public university which affiliates institutes offering technical courses, is set to increase from 67 to around 153 in two years. Currently, BATU has 103 affiliated colleges, which is an increase from the 67 in the academic year of 2016-17. Only one government-run institute, an engineering college in Yavatmal, has moved to the technical university.

According to university officials, as many as 50 colleges have applied to be affiliated with BATU in the academic year 2019-20. Forty-six of these applicants are new institutes and the remaining are existing institutes that want to move out of their current universities to the technical university. These applications are awaiting a nod from the state.

Most of the existing BATU-affiliated colleges are located in Aurangabad, Jalgaon, Satara, Pune and Kolhapur districts. Three pharmacy colleges in Sindhudurg are among those that are located in the region which come under the purview of University of Mumbai (MU). Most of these institutes offer engineering and pharmacy courses, while a handful offer architecture courses.

In the past, institutes have been reluctant to be affiliated with BATU. “We are an emerging university, but our brand is yet to be established. It appears that even the government-run institutes have still not decided to join us,” said Sunil Bhamre, the university registrar. There has, however, been a push to institutes to be affiliated to BATU. “Maharashtra State Commission for Higher Education and Development (MAHED) has directed vice-chancellors of all the state universities to have new technical institutes be affiliated by BATU,” said Bhamre.

Bhamre said that BATU’s selling point is the varsity’s focus on technical education. “The curriculum at BATU is skill-oriented. The colleges realise that we are dedicated to technical education. We also use technology extensively in conducting examinations. As a result, many colleges came to us. They shared their experience with other institutes that joined afterwards,” said the university registrar.

Established in 2014, BATU was conceived as a single umbrella university for technical institutes – engineering, management, pharmacy, architecture and hotel management and catering colleges – along the lines of Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), in Nashik, which affiliates all the health science colleges in the state. However, technical colleges have the liberty of choosing whether they would prefer to be affiliated to public universities in their respective regions or the technical university.

While many of the existing institutes have been reluctant to move to BATU until now, according to the varsity officials, the number of colleges, new and existing, who are willing to join the technical university is on the rise. However, BATU is far from becoming the sole affiliating university of all technical colleges in the state. Suresh Ukarande, dean in-charge, science and technology at MU, said, “MU and Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) are brands unto themselves and are known worldwide. That’s why their affiliated colleges don’t want to leave them. On the other hand, many colleges from other state varsities have shifted to BATU.”