IIT council meet to increase quota of students for JEE Advance

A crucial meeting of the IIT council – the apex government-nominated body of the 16 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)  – on October 6 could discuss a proposal to increase the quota of students appearing for JEE Advance from 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh and recovering of running expenses of <g data-gr-id="38">institute</g> through <g data-gr-id="39">student</g> fee.

Currently, after the first stage, JEE (Main), 1.5 lakh students are selected for the second stage of the selection process, that is JEE Advance.

The meeting in Mumbai would be held within a week of the NIT council meeting on October 1, where the government decided to constitute a core committee to evaluate a proposal to hold a single entrance test for both IITs as well as NITs.

The IIT council at Mumbai could deliberate on adopting a funding mechanism, where the government will appreciably enhance investments in capital assets, labs, etc, but the bulk of the running expenses would be met by the students.

According to sources, this could potentially raise the tuition fee, though the increase would be met by 100 per cent <g data-gr-id="33">interest free</g> student loan. IITs charge Rs 90,000 from the students annually. The model has already been accepted by the NITs. On the agenda would be increasing the number of students appearing for JEE Advance from 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh from 2016 onwards.

“The number of seats available at the IITs has increased considerably as new IITs have also come into existence. But, over the past three years, only 1.5 lakh students could make it to the IIT-JEE (advanced) examination. We wanted to ensure that more students could take the competitive examination as seats have remained vacant even this year,” said an IIT director.

IITs, on the other hand, are mulling holding a single entrance test by reverting back to the old format as the existing format is proving to be “cumbersome” and “time consuming”.