JAIPUR: The technical education sector in the state is facing a bleak future with large number of faculty positions in the government aided engineering colleges remaining vacant which adversely affecting the quality of education in these colleges. In nine engineering colleges, out of 1,080 sanctioned posts of teaching facility, only 590 are now in existence. This means 46% of the total sanctioned post of teaching faculty is vacant. Similar, is the case with non-teaching staff. Out of the total sanctioned post of 1096 non-teaching staff, only 658 are now working while over 40 % of the sanctioned posts are lying vacant. These nine Engineering colleges in consideration are the Government Engineering College Ajmer; Government Women's Engineering College Ajmer; Government engineering college Bikaner; CET Bikaner; Government Engineering college Jhalawar; MLVT Bhilwara; MLVT Bhilwara; Government Engineering college Banswara ; Government Engineering college Bharatpur and RTU Kota. These government aided engineering colleges are generally the next preference of students after the high profile IITs and NITs as students prefer government aided colleges over private ones. The reason for this is the presence of experienced faculty. However things are not looking good for these colleges either with students preferring to migrate to reputed private colleges in the South due to the lethargy of the college administration and the government inability to put the functioning of these colleges in order. Sources in the Higher education department said these government aided engineering colleges are autonomous bodies. Each college had a board of governors and the principal of the college is the member secretary. Secretary technical education is also a member of the board of governors. He said the government role is limited to providing land, building and other infrastructure and the day today administration like faculty positions are to be decided by the college administration. They have to find money for new appointment similar to th