After several years of boom, engineering education in the country is fast losing its sheen. Staring at the possibility of thousands of seats going vacant and facing imminent closure under AICTE norms, private ENGINEERING COLLEGES are now offering all kinds of lures to attract students. From fees as low as Rs 2,500 per year to free laptops and two-wheelers, colleges are now adopting new marketing strategies to woo students. According to a data released by the All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE), out of 15.5 lakh engineering courses seats in 3,291 engineering colleges across the country, over 50 per cent remained vacant in 2016-17. In 2015-16, too, half of 14.76 lakh engineering seats had no takers. As per an Ahmedabad Mirror report, this year, at the end of round 1 admissions process in Gujarat colleges, as many as 34,642 seats out of 55,422 have remained vacant. To counter this situation, colleges are offering several discounts i...