India now has 1,668 engineering institutes and getting into one isn't very tough if you're not shooting for the best -- more than 70% of the applicants manage to get in compared with a mere 1% about 20 years ago. But with thousands of seats likely to be added to the national pool, getting into an engineering school could be a breeze -- especially for women students.

AICTE's acting chairman, R A Yadav, said more than 10% of the applications are for opening ``girls only'' colleges, a fallout of the government's proposal introducing concessions for institutes which promote technical education among women.

Till last year, AICTE used to accept applications to start new colleges all through the year, but that has changed now. ``Only the applications that receive a green signal by June 2008 will be able to start functioning from the coming academic year,'' said Yadav. However, there's a debate about whether many of the engineering colleges are churning out full-fledged engineers or mere technicians with a diploma.

A recent study by Duke University says that for every one million citizens, the US produces roughly 750 technology specialists, compared with China's 500 and India's 200. The report, ``Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate: Placing the United States on a Level Playing Field with China and India'' by Gary Gereffi and Vivek Wadhwa, says that in 2004, while roughly 70,000 engineers graduated in the US, 6,00,000 graduated in China and 3,50,000 in India.

New IITs to offer wider canvas
The three new IITs proposed in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh will not only teach engineering but also design and creative arts, management, health sciences, humanities and social sciences. The IITs will begin with 200 students each and, when developed, have a strength of 3,000.