THE opening up of deemed university status to standalone engineering and management colleges has enabled some institutes such as Karunya University to drastically increase capacity in the last two to three years. While the recent decision by the government to derecognise some of them came as a jolt, the Supreme Court’s decision to maintain status quo has resulted in most of these colleges moving further up on their growth path.

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While some of the deemed universities like Amrita  have begun to produce academic work of good quality, all of them have infrastructure of a reasonable quality. Some of these colleges like SRM have multi-location campuses while many others like VIT  boast of  a truly international student body. Most of them have student exchange programmes with different universities. What stands in good stead for the student is the assurance of a certain level of infrastructure and resource availability, though the level of teaching and learning experience vary widely. With individual admission processes and large capacities, these colleges do provide a better chance of obtaining an admission vis-à-vis some of the comparable state colleges. So  it makes sense to keep some of these colleges in your consideration set. 
 

College Profile: Karunya University

Location: Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Chancellor: Dr. Paul Dhinakaran
Flagship programme: BE (Honours), BTech
Entrance exam: KEE (Karunya Entrance Exam)
Student intake: 1,386
Disciplines: Civil, Computer Science,Electronics and Communication,Electronic and Electrical, Electronics and
Instrumentation, Mechanical,
Electronics, Information Technology,Biotechnology, Bioinformatics,Aeronautical, Food Processing Full-time faculty: 430 (Supporting - 220) 
Fees (full course):  Rs. 556,000
Board & lodging (two years): Rs. 73,000
Approval/Accreditation: AICTE approved, NCTE and NAAC accredited 
Average placement salary: Not available
Top recruiters: US Technologies,
Tata Consultancy Services,
Reliance Life Insurance, ABN Amro,
Ashok Leyland
Other programmes: BTech, ME, MBA, MCA
Other campuses: None
Web site: www.karunya.edu

            Located 25 km away from Coimbatore, The Karunya Institute of Technology was started as a private self-financing engineering college in 1986.  It now has 10 schools, which provide undergraduate and postgraduate courses in various fields. Loan scholarships are available to poor students as well as endowment awards to students who excel in their studies and in sports. 

Infrastructural features include 2,200 LAN-enabled PCs with Internet connection. The college library stocks  59,000 volumes, 275 international and national journals, and online access to several journals. Karunya has signed MoUs with universities across the world, through which it aims to establish student and faculty exchanges, and set up joint research projects. 

The university has also collaborated with 25 technical institutions. For instance, Microsoft provides students with free e-learning of Microsoft’s certified courses.The Centre for Industrial Collaboration interacts with industries through various programmes to impart application knowledge and integrated industrial training to the students and faculty, along with live industrial projects, placement through campus interviews and industrial collaborations. 

According to the website, about 80% of eligible final year students, who seek a placement, are placed with reputed organisations through campus placements. A fully-residential campus, Karunya has 11 hostels on its campus, which accommodate 7,200 students. Internet centres are available in the hostels.