Infra Boost For 5 Younger IITs To Start This Year, Seat Expansion From 2026 – News18

Last Updated:March 25, 2025, 10:39 IST

“Many IITs already have a shortage of faculty for specific positions. It will be a difficult task to recruit faculty as quickly,” a senior official familiar with the process said.

Infrastructure upgrade at the five newer Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will start this year itself while a phased expansion of seats at the undergraduate (UG) level in each of these institutes, a major budget announcement, is likely from 2026, News18 has learnt.

The Union Education Ministry is in the process of holding discussions with these five third-generation institutes – IIT-Tirupati, IIT-Palakkad, IIT-Jammu, IIT-Dharwad and IIT-Bhilai – for the expansion of seats, which will be done along with infrastructure upgrade at these campuses in a fast forward mode.

While infrastructure upgrade can start this year itself since the campuses should be ready to accommodate an increased number of students, the increase in intake will most probably begin from the next academic session of 2026-27, officials familiar with the process told News 18.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting her eighth consecutive budget on February 1 this year, had announced to expand infrastructure across five newer IITs (established after 2014) to accommodate 6,500 more students.

“A total thousand undergraduate level seats may be added to these IITs taken together from the next session and a similar figure then will have to be added annually over the next five years to increase the intake to 6,500. However, expanding seats means more hostels, faculty, and classrooms, which will have to be developed at a much quicker pace,” said an official familiar with the process.

Currently, each of these five younger IITs offer around 250+ seats for its UG programmes.

At present, all 23 IITs admit over 17,700 students at the UG level every year through a JEE score based on the JEE-Advanced exam. Even as the number of seats on offer has been limited, every year the number of those appearing for the exam run into lakhs.

‘Recruiting faculty a challenge’

“Discussions are being held with the institutes regarding funds, hiring additional faculty and other resources. Many IITs already have a shortage of faculty for specific positions. It will be a difficult task to recruit faculty as quickly,” a senior official familiar with the process said.

On March 5, the central government had organised a post-budget webinar titled ‘Investing in People for different themes to create a roadmap for implementing major budget announcements, of which one was ‘Expansion of seats in IITs’, and breakout parallel sessions were conducted for each, which were attended by officials of central and state governments, experts and various stakeholders.

The session on IITs had a panel of heads of the some of these newer IITs, faculty members from leading first generation IITs in science and research, officials from central government and representatives from industry.

During the session, one of the experts, Prof Devendra Jalihal, director, IIT-Guwahati, said that while over the years IITs have been told to increase the number of seats, the problem with the same is that it’s “not sustainable” since these are residential campuses.

“It just means a greater number of hostel rooms, classrooms, more faculty, more housing for them, which becomes an endless cycle and it’s just not sustainable,” he had said during the session.

He also suggested a virtual expansion of seats instead of the physical expansion citing the tremendous use of online education during the Covid-19 pandemic.