MUMBAI: For the 3.2 lakh students who just took the IIT joint entrance exam across the country, here's something to cheer about.
There will be three more IITs - in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan - taking off this year. This will translate into 360 more seats.
None of the new IITs, however, will boast of campuses like the institutes in Delhi Kanpur, Kharagpur and Chennai.
IIT-Andhra Pradesh, for instance, will operate out of an old DRDO ammunition laboratory in Medak; while IIT-Bihar and IIT-Rajasthan will work out of rented premises for two years.
The finance ministry has already cleared the proposals, though some minor administrative issues need to be sorted out.
M S Ananth, director of IIT-Madras, said: "The three new IITs are expected to start this year with 120 seats each.
So, there will be 360 more seats in the three new colleges. We will also implement the 9% quota for OBCs this year."
The seven IIT directors are meeting on Wednesday. A team from IIT-Madras has already visited Medak and has recommended that the AP government improve infrastructure. The temporary campus, too, will have to have the basic requirements.
IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Delhi have been asked to "mentor" the new IITs coming up in Bihar and Rajasthan, respectively.
Some IIT directors, however, feel the recent SC verdict on OBC quota has altered things a bit. Sanjay Dhande, director of IIT-Kanpur, said: "It has put OBC implementation on the frontburner. We now have to see if both things - new IITs and quota implementation - can be handled simultaneously. Rolling out the OBC quota and starting the three new institutions this year will be a huge challenge."
Each of these three new IITs will ultimately have to grow to accommodate a student strength of about 3,000 (approximately 2,000 seats in BTech, 500 in MTech, 400 seats for PhD and 100 for post-doctoral fellows).
Moderation Team
![[Post New]](/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
![[Up]](/templates/default/images/icon_up.gif "[Up]"){kind=icon}
71
