The beginning
Till 1968, West Bengal had only nine engineering institutions in the state, including the private ones.
The total intake at the undergraduate level and at the post-graduate level was 1,500, making engineering a subject of the crème de la crème of academics. The late 90s, however, witnessed a spurt in the number of private engineering colleges in the state. In 1995, the Kalyani Government Engineering College was the last institute to be set up by the state government.

The rise
Engineering colleges
* 1968: 9
* 2002: 29
* 2006: 62

* In a little over 30 years, from 1968 to 2002, the number of technical institutions tripled
* In the last five years, there has been over 100 per cent rise (from 29 in 2002 to 62 in 2007)
* In 2006-07, six colleges were set up in a single year
* In 2007-08, 14 new colleges were proposed to be set up

Seats:
There has been a 10-fold rise from 1968 to 2007 — from a mere 1,500 to 16,000

Candidates:
Number of students appearing for the Joint Entrance Examination 2007 — 1,10,000
Number of seats in the engineering
colleges, both government and private, in 2007 — 16,000
Number of students appearing for the Joint Entrance Examination 2008 — 76,450
Number of seats expected in engineering colleges in 2008 — 20,000

* With 14 new colleges, which are awaiting approval from AICTE, the number of seats is expected to rise by another 4,000.
* In an interesting contrast, the increase in seats by 4,000 was not matched by an increase in number of candidates. Rather, 40,000 less students have opted to appear for this year’s JEE

Govt vs private
Govt engg
Colleges 7
Seats 2,000
Fee Rs 12,000/ 15,000
Pvt engg
Colleges 52
Seats 14,000
Fee Rs 41,000
(Fees per semester)

* Faculty in the government colleges are well qualified but 50 per cent seats are vacant

* No vacancy in private colleges. Teachers are, however, not qualified enough

* Three state universities provide technical education: Calcutta University, Jadavpur University and Bengal Engineering and Science University

Seat distribution
* Number of seats in the core sector of engineering — 6,944 (Electronics, Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Metallurgy, Mining, Marine, Architecture and others)
* Number of seats in the IT and IT-enabled disciplines — 5,700
* Specialised Disciplines — 650(These include leather, textile, ceramic, power, jute, production, printing, automobile engineering)
* Bio Technology, Bio Medical Engg — 420
* Other new disciplines — 1,500(Applied Electronics & Instrumentation, Electrical and Electronics, Electronics and Instrumentation and Control Engineering)
* Pharmacy — 640

* Other ways to get into engineering colleges without JEE
* 10% seats for management quota students
* 10% seats for diploma holders from polytechnic(For polytechnics, the lateral entry students join the engineering course in the second year of the course)

* Freeships in engineering colleges
* 10% of the total students to get full freeship whose family income is less than Rs 8,000 per month
* 5% of the total students to have half freeship whose family income are less than 10,000 per month