Over 300 IIT seats allotted in final round of admissions

Adhering to the trend that started in 2015, there was an increase in the number of vacant seats at the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) this year. According to information shared by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) 2019 office, there were over 300 vacancies across IITs, which had to be re-allotted in the seventh and final round on Thursday. The final count of vacant seats would be announced after the final round of admissions.

At 5pm on Friday, which was the original scheduled deadline for students to confirm admissions, JoSAA decided to extend their deadline by a few hours in order to give students more time to confirm admissions. “We got requests from several students as well as some reporting centres to extend the deadline so that students [who are] travelling and want to confirm their admissions get enough time to do so. Our aim is to ensure maximum seats get takers and in turn, seat vacancy reduces,” said Prof M L Sharma, organising chairman JEE-Advanced 2019, IIT Roorkee.

This is the third year that JoSAA has conducted seven rounds of seat allocation, with the aim of reducing the number of vacant seats in IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and other government funded technology institutes (GFTIs).

The total intake capacity of 23 IITs stood at 13,583 this year; up from 11,279 last year. Officials said that there was an increase in the number of seats owing to the supernumerary seats added in all institutes to accommodate female students and the 10% quota for economically weaker sections (EWS). “We’ll know the final count of seat vacancy soon, but the hope is that maximum seats will have takers after the final round,” said Sharma. The number of vacancies in IITs has been a persistent concern for authorities. While 121 seats were left vacant in 2017, the figure stood at 96 in 2016. The number of vacant seats stood at 50 in 2015 and in 2014, there were only three vacancies.

“The number of unclaimed seats seems to be increasing with every passing year and this is a concern affecting all IITs,” said a senior professor from IIT Kanpur.