Interest Free Loans Instead of Fee Waiver for Economically Weak Candidates at IITs

The IIT Council is planning to replace fee waiver for economically backward students with interest-free loans. The Council is also likely to launch one-year executive M.Tech programme especially meant for working professionals. In the same way, ‘IIT Extension Centres’ will be set up to share best practices in the area of engineering education. The IIT Council has planned to meet in Mumbai on April 28, 2017, to deliberate on the four changes with regard to the concessions introduced for special category students last year in 2016.

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The directors of Indian Institutes of Technology have collectively sought the following: -

• Reimbursement from Ministry of Human Resource and Development for the complete waiver of tuition fee that was announced for SC/ ST and PH students. The directors indicated that the reimbursement must be made in shape of maintenance grants.
• Complete fee waiver should be replaced by “Liberal education Loans” for UG candidates whose family’s annual income is less than Rs. 1,00,000.
• Two-thirds of tuition fee must be waived for the candidates whose annual income of the family is between Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh.
• Strengthening of means and merit scholarships.
• IITs have also decided to continue interest subvention of education loans that are taken by undergraduate students. However, this policy is applicable only if these students continue to pursue postgraduate studies at IITs.

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With an objective to increase the revenue of IITs, a one-year M.Tech programme for working professions will be introduced. The tuition fee for this course will be charged as per market rate.