Nagpur: There is good news for engineering aspirants from Vidarbha, especially from economically weaker sections. The Government College of Engineering (GCoE) would start functioning in city from next academic session (2016-17).

The much-awaited college would be started with five branches and 300 seats at newly allotted campus behind Trupti Hotel on Wardha road, four years after it was demanded and two years after then Congress-NCP government cleared the proposal. The land belonged to Maharashtra Airport Development Corporation (MADC) near newly constructed homes for project-affected persons (PAPs).

The 10 acres land was originally meant for establishing a government Industrial Training Institute (ITI) by MADC. A building with classrooms, laboratories, toilets and others facilities have already been built. However, the ITI proposal couldn't materialize and therefore the land and building was allocated to GCOE for its permanent campus.

An announcement for shifting GCOE to its new address was made by guardian minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule during inaugural function of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Nagpur, in July last year. "Initially, we will start with civil, mechanical, electrical, electronics and telecommunications, and computer science branches with intake capacity of 60 each. We have already sent proposal for recruitment of 200 personnel that includes teaching and non-teaching staff to Department of Higher and Technical Education," joint director of technical education in Nagpur Gulab Thakre told TOI.

The joint director's office had also dispatched proposal for affiliation to Nagpur University and would be sending another one to AICTE for approval. The admissions to college would be through centralized admissions process (CAP) applicable for all Top Engineering colleges in Maharashtra.

"Only after AICTE inspection and NU's affiliation the college would actually be started but we don't see any problem with that as all formalities would be completed within stipulated period. Even recruitment of 200 staff is planned in phases starting from first to final years. The faculty is absolutely not a problem in Nagpur with presence of over 20 engineering colleges in and around the city," Thakre pointed out.