As if to keep august company with nature, engineering colleges first took birth in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra virtually causing a flood of institutions during the past few decades offering courses in different branches of engineering only to be followed by a drought of jobs for the graduates. The dramatic emergence of digital scene in the country marked by rapid advances in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) creating boundless avenues of employment for the youth trained in the applications of Computer Science has eased the fading face of Engineering Colleges to an admirable extent. The courses other than Computer-based subjects getting sidelined, more than half the number of Engineering Colleges in all the four States have downed their shutters resulting in rendering the related infrastructure as speechless deserted edifices. As if to add insult to injury, a report by experts submitted to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD), Government of India and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has said that only 17.91 per cent, that is, less than one in six engineering graduates were employable for the software services sector.
Long before the clamour to study in Engineering Colleges gripped the literati and when the then Princely State of Mysore hosted just three Engineering Colleges including one in Mysuru, the graduates of these institutions earned name and fame by their illustrious track record of professional excellence with the sobriquet Mysore Engineers. Now, their niche place has been annexed by IT professionals.
