Govt?s new year gift: More IIT, IIM seats

For those aspiring to get into the IIMs and IITs, here is a New Year gift. The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) plans to increase the number of students being admitted to the IITs and IIMs at all levels.

In a new action plan prepared to give boost to higher education in the coming academic year, the ministry wants the number of students for undergraduate/postgraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral level courses in these institutes to increase.

“It is for the IITs and IIMs to specify more seats. We have told them that the intake has been increased to meet the demands of the market,” a senior ministry official said. The new courses, officials say, will bring more revenue to the IITs and IIMs.

There are about 23,000 students in the seven IITs and about 10,000 students in IIMs. But the institutes lose money on each student because of the cost incurred on high inputs. For example, an IIT spends Rs 1.90 lakh on a student every year whereas the money recovered is only Rs 30,000 for each student. “New students will help in bridging the gap,” he said.

Though the opening of the new IITs have been ruled out, the ministry wants the premier institutes to open their study centres in far-flung areas of the country. “Each IIT should have at least one such centre. One such centre of Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Allahabad has been opened in Amethi,” said an official.

The IITs will also introduce life science courses soon and the IITs in Kharagpur and Kanpur will have schools for bio-sciences and medicine in the next two years.