Gauree.Malkarnekar@timesofindia.comPanaji: Twenty-five years after it became operational, one of Goa’s five engineering institutes, Shiroda-based Shree Rayeshwar Institute of Engineering & Information Technology (RIEIT), asked state govt not to admit students to first year to all four of its engineering programmes for the new academic year 2026-27. The decision comes after the private engineering college consistently saw poor enrolment over the past few years.Barely 8% of the seats at RIEIT were filled last year, with only 25 students opting for programmes at the institute out of the total intake of 300 seats. RIEIT offered 75 seats each in the engineering streams of information technology, computer, electronics and computer, and mechanical and automation.“For now, RIEIT has asked the directorate of technical education (DTE) not to carry out admissions to first year. However, the programmes will continue for students already studying in second, third, and fourth year in the college. With barely 25 students getting admitted to an intake of 300, it gets difficult for any institute to cover costs like teacher salaries. The college has consistently had low intake for the past many years. If the institute wants to wind up, it will have to state so to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and then the DTE will be informed of the same,” said an official.After the seats for economically backward sections were added to Goa’s total engineering seat intake for five colleges currently operational, the DTE is seeing around 400 seats going vacant in engineering institutes every year.The total seats on offer in Goa for engineering is presently 1,700, with national institutes like BITS Pilani, Indian Institute of Technology, and National Institute of Technology, also added to the mix in recent years.Officials said that around 3,000 students take the engineering entrance test from Goa each year and the cream of students often opt for the national institutes. As years go by, Goan students are also not averse to leaving the state for higher education as it was the case earlier, officials said.In more recent years, Don Bosco College of Engineering was established at Fatorda and Agnel Institute of Engineering and Management at Assagao, both of which started after RIEIT. With RIEIT located in remote Shiroda, students increasingly began showing interest in joining these two newer colleges, leaving RIEIT with fewer and fewer students.“This year, admissions to GEC is full as usual and 75% seats are full at PCCE, Don Bosco College of Engineering, and Agnel Institute. Only RIEIT has seen only 8% of its seats filled,” said the official.RIEIT is the third engineering college to be founded in Goa, starting operations in 2001, and it was only the second private college after Padre Conceicao College of Engineering, Verna, which was established in 1997. The govt-run Goa Engineering College at Farmagudi was the state’s first to be founded in the late 1960s.RIEIT runs under Shivgram Education Society, of which minister for water resources Subhash Shirodkar is the chairman.
