'Unpopular' courses likely to be discontinued at IITs

The Indian Institute of Technology has decided to consider putting an end to certain ‘unpopular’ courses due to lack of interest shown by students, and growing number of vacant seats in the last few years. Courses like agricultural engineering, biochemical engineering and pharma engineering, have not seen many takers. A report in The New Indian Express said that a decision in this regard will be taken at the IIT Council meeting on Tuesday. As per a report in The New Indian Express, a senior official from the HRD Ministry was quoted saying, “Branches such as agricultural engineering, biochemical engineering and pharma engineering are not getting enough admission, probably due to not so good career prospects and other institutes offering better course structure.” He further added that they will discuss this issue in the IIT Council on Tuesday, to check on the course generating less interest among students that can be dropped from the next academic session. Presided by the HRD Minister, the IIT Council is held annually, and attended by the IIT directors, to discuss issues and formulate plans for IITs. Total 118 seats are vacant for B.Tech courses as compared to 121 seats vacant last year. “This is an issue of major concern for us as we do not want even a single seat of the premier engineering institutes to go vacant,” an HRD official said about the current situation. The recently concluded Parliament session saw HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar stating that 11,961 BTech seats were filled in 2018 in the 23 IITs, leaving just 118 seats vacant.“We have increased the seats by (over) 1,000. And, out of the 12,079 seats (available), I am very happy to announce, 11,961 seats have been filled," said Javadekar. Around supernumerary 800 seats were created for women this year and the enrollment increased to 15 percent as compared 9 percent last year. IIT Delhi, in fact, conducted special programmes in an attempt to encourage girl students to choose program which are usually not on their priority list. Source: Money Control