Higher education in India has expanded remarkably during the post-independence period, and more impressively during the last three to four decades, emerging as the second largest system in the world after China. However, the growth has not been even and, being unplanned, unregulated and market driven, shows distinct anomalies: some branches of higher education like engineering & technology and management have expanded rapidly and some like sciences, social sciences and humanities have remained stagnant, if not shrunk; some regions in the country have witnessed a highly impressive growth, while some regions are bereft of quality institutions in good number; the private sector has grown much faster than the public sector in higher education, visibly widening inequalities in access to education between socioeconomic groups and posing problems for effective regulation and governance; quality being traded off in favour of expansion; and so on. Using the most up-to-date secondary data available in multiple authentic sources, policy documents and media reports, the paper analyses the rapid growth of engineering education in India, in its several dimensions. It analyses (a) patterns of growth in engineering education, (b) inequalities in the growth, (c) concerns relating to declining quality, (d) bizarre trends and patterns in the funding of engineering education by the government and households, and (e) the dynamic labour market conditions that the engineering graduates face. Finally, a critical comment is offered on the recent reforms being attempted in engineering/technical education, besides discussing some of the essential changes and improvements needed towards restructuring and rejuvenating the engineering education system in India. The critical descriptive account on the status and prospects of engineering education in India presented here, will be of immense interest to academia as well as administrators and policy makers.