Bangalore: That students vie with one another for Information Technology (IT) seats in engineering colleges may be a popular perception but Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) says demand of IT branch is actually decreasing.

"Demand is decreasing. IT is not one of our most popular branches. IT (seats) are becoming vacant. Conventional branches like mechanical and chemical engineering are becoming popular", R Natarajan told reporters in a response on the sidelines of a function in Bangalore.

Natarajan attributed this trend to IT boom not coming up to the earlier-projected levels, Dot-com bubble burst as well as increased competition to India in this sector by Ireland, Israel and the Philippines.

But he also said that with new studies projecting huge demand for IT and ITeS professionals in the coming years, things might change.

Natarajan dismissed suggestions that there have been "mushrooming" of engineering colleges, saying international comparisons showed that engineering admission capacity in India in terms of population is way below compared to developed and industrialising nations.

But Natarajan talked about regional imbalances in this context.

While in States such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Kerala is picking up, there is a very large admission capacity, it's not so in eastern and north-eastern regions except West Bengal where a large number of such institutions are coming up.

He also pointed to "economic issue", noting that a student of Assam with poor economic background is not in a position to afford engineering education in some other regions.

He said it's an acknowledged fact that the growth in the number of engineers is one of the factors linked to economic, social and industrial development of that region.

States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are being encouraged to set up more engineering colleges, Natarajan said.