National Institutes of Technology (NITs) to Allocate More Seats to Women
- National Institutes of Technology will soon add supernumerary seats so that women candidates can seek admission in engineering and technical courses.
- These seats will be added if the female proportion falls below 14 percent at the NITs.
The next academic session (2018-20) at NITs is likely to witness more female students in different engineering and science-oriented courses. After Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology will reserve special supernumerary seats for female students. The initiative will provide equitable access to girls in top-ranked NITs.
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An official of Ministry of Human Resource Development revealed that the number of seats for male students would not be reduced and special supernumerary seats will be created if the strength of female students in any NIT falls below 14%. The percentage of supernumerary seats will be increased to 17% in 2019 and 20% in 2020, he added.
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As per an official data from the HRD Ministry, only 14% female students enrolled into 31 NITs this year. There has been a sharp decline compared to the previous academic session where 22% female candidates joined NITs. Out of 31 NITs, 14 NITs were not able to enroll even at least 14% of female students. Overall, out of 17,061 students who joined NITs this year, 2,440 were female students.
With the latest decision taken by HRD Ministry, at least 300 girls are expected to get a seat in NITs.
As mentioned earlier by HRD Ministry, 4% of seats will be reserved for women candidates in IITs. This essentially means that a total number of 1,540 girls are expected to take admission in these premier institutes.
Most importantly, statutory reservation for PH, OBC, ST and SC categories will be applicable in the supernumerary seats.