The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have added 779 more seats in the 2018 academic session exclusively for women to improve the gender ratio in its B.Tech programs.
The decision was taken last year by the IIT Council but a final number of "supernumerary seats" announced this month. Out of the 779 seats, IIT Kharagpur has the largest chunk of 113 seats following IIT-Dhanbad, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-BHU, IIT-Roorkee, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Bombay and IIT Guwahati.
The number of seats is likely to be increased every year. At IIT Kharagpur currently, 9% women are admitted and this year seat increased to 14%. The decision was taken after sub-committee of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) in 2017 observed that every year enough number of women clear JEE (Advanced) but the enrollment of the female candidates are much lower.
"Over next few years percentage of girls is to be hiked to 20%", said Sudeshna Sarkar, Faculty at IIT Kharagpur.
