(From left) Azhar Kareem, Manmeet Kakkar, Kulkirat Singh, BN Pandey and Arshad Kareem at the news conference in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, May 22: In the past few years, Patna has witnessed a mushrooming of engineering colleges.

A news conference of Gulzar Group of Institutes (GGI), an engineering college of Punjab, was held today at a city hotel on Exhibition Road. At present, they have opened a regional office in Patna to provide information regarding career counselling, loans, admission guidance and scholarships.

Kulkirat Singh, the executive director of the institute, said: “Our college is one of the best in entire north India, we not only provide quality education but also work on overall development of students like extracurricular activities.” The institute, which is approved by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and is affiliated to Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar is planning to open a campus in Patna from the next academic year. “The college came up in 2009 and no engineering batch has passed out as yet but we promise to provide our students placement in companies like Wipro, Sony, TVS, Maruti Suzuki, UltraTech and others,” said Manmeet Kakkar, the assistant professor of GGI. The campus promises to provide the best infrastructure with all modern facilities like Wi-Fi, e-library and others.

When asked about the mushrooming of engineering institutes and the authenticity of these colleges, S.K. Ganguli, a retired professor of chemistry at Patna Science College, said: “It is very essential to check that these colleges are affiliated to a government body like AICTE or not. One should also check the infrastructure that they promise.”

He added: “Admission to these colleges should be on the basis of merit and not just by providing fees because then the quality of students passing out from these colleges will not be as good as students of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Placements may prove to be a big problem in the future.”

National Institute of Technology professor Sanjeev Sinha said: “If these colleges promise the kind of facility that is required for a good engineering college then one should go for it. If placements are promised then there should not be a problem in opting for these. But it is important for the students and parents to do a bit of research on these colleges before investing as the students might suffer in the future.”

Pratyush Ranjan, an aspiring engineer, said: “I don’t trust these institutes because most of them are new and they give false promises. Once somebody takes admission, the college is least bothered about the placements.” He added: “I would rather waste a year than take admission in any new college. I think it is better to try for IIT and other good engineering colleges, as brand matters.”

Abhiroop Sinha, an engineering student, said: “I had skipped a year as I could not get admission in a renowned college but I never fell for the false promises which these new engineering colleges make because one never knows when these colleges will shut down and we students would sufferer.”