The UMHRD made online submission of applications for technical colleges mandatory to get rid of corruption in the AICTE while granting colleges approvals.

Technical glitches in the online approval process has forced the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to extend the deadline for sub- mission of compliance for existing engineering, MBA and MCA colleges to March 15.
Earlier, February 28 was the due date, but a majority of the colleges could not submit applications online as the Website crashed unable to cope with the huge rush of applicants.

The AP Engineering Col- leges Managements Associ- ation has welcomed the decision of the AICTE to extend the deadline.

The Union ministry of HRD (UMHRD) had launched the mandatory on- line submission of applica- tions for technical colleges in January this year to get rid of corruption in the AICTE while granting approvals to colleges.

The UMHRD had decided to implement an online approval process after the CBI caught AICTE member

secretary, Mr Mr Narayan Rao, red-handed while accepting bribe to grant approval to a college in August 2009. To make mat- ters worse, this incident was followed by the suspension of the AICTE chairman, Mr Yadav, on corruption charges.
The online initiative was launched on January 8, by the Union minister for HRD, Mr Kapil Sibal, who said the project will be oper- ational from January 10.

However, neither existing nor new colleges could sub- mit the applications. All institutes have to upload more than 40 documents which is not being success- fully done due to technical problems in the new Web- site, aicte-india.org.