• IITs lower cut-offs to fill seats •

TNN, Pune Edition, 08th Aug 2008

2nd Rd Of Admissions For The 1st Time In History Of IITs

Mumbai: In the history of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), never has there been a second round of admissions. This year, though, vacant seats at all the 13 IIT campuses, as also at IT-BHU and ISM-Dhanbad, will be filled after a second admission list is soon put out.

After a campaign by TOI, the human resource development ministry met IIT chiefs on Tuesday in the capital and asked them to fill up the empty seats. However, what comes as a shock is that the HRD ministry is not interested in de-reserving vacant seats that were meant for SC, ST and OBC candidates. Instead, the ministry wants the premier engineering schools to dilute merit and further bring down the cut-offs to admit reserved category students.

After the Tuesday meeting, IIT-Delhi director Surendra Prasad said, “We will be taking additional students.” The IIT joint admission board has called for an urgent meeting next week to discuss the modalities of filling up seats that have gone abegging. IIT-Madras director pointed out that it is criminal to take in students with cut-offs that are further relaxed. “These students will suffer and so will their self-confidence,” he told TOI.