IITs set to increase seats by 460

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are set to increase their accommodations by 460 seats in the undergraduate programme, increasing the total number of seats to 11,032 for the academic year 2017-18. 

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Last year, 569 seats were added as four new IITs — IIT Chhattisgarh, IIT Goa, IIT Jammu and IIT Karnataka — were launched. This year, seats will be added in IITs in Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Ropar, Jodhpur, Patna, Indore, Mandi and Jammu, if their senates approve it, which is likely. 

For the prestigious institute's other branches, space crunch has been a problem. While IITs in Dharwad, Goa and Tirupati have been operating out of rented campuses and were unable to increase their strength, the older IITs like Bombay, Madras, Delhi have also hinted at lack of space since they have not sought to increase their intake this year. 

The IIT authorities are, nevertheless, happy over the development of adding more seats. "This shows that these IITs have been able to improve their infrastructure and can now accommodate more students," said Y Udaykumar, co-ordinator of the Joint Seat-Allocation Authority of the IITs and the National Institutes of Technology.

However, increasing the number of seats in the undergraduate programme would require scrapping of courses that find less takers. The human resource development (HRD) ministry gave its nod on February 3 for closing down unpopular courses so that seats don't go vacant. 

The ministry wants centrally funded technical institutes as part of joint counselling to review the number of seats based on vacant seats, employment opportunities, national requirement, faculty strength and the available infrastructure.

"The ministry has said that new disciplines may only be introduced after carrying out market-opportunity analysis based on employability, requirement of higher education and research. Additionally, the institutes may reduce the number of seats on the basis of availability of hostel facility, lab infrastructure, classrooms, and faculty strength. The senate of each institute is likely to take a decision in this regard within March 31," an official from the HRD ministry told the Times of India.