IITs to admit day scholars, allow PhD enrolment right after BTech

NEW DELHI: The IITs will open their doors for “non-resident” students, with a goal to increase their number of seats to 100,000 by 2020.

The country’s top tech institutes have around 72,000 students in their undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate courses, and all of them stay in hostels. But the IIT Council, the highest decisionmaking body of the institutes, decided on Tuesday to admit day scholars who can study from home or stay in a rented place outside the campus.

Another aim is to put research on the forefront, for which students will be allowed to do a PhD right after BTech, deviating from the practice of permitting only

30,000 non-resident students in the next three years. Currently, hostel stay is mandatory

postgraduates to do doctorate programmes.

Besides, a prime minister’s fellowship of `60,000 a month for five years will be given to around 1,000 students to do research in IITs.

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Bright IITians prefer to go abroad to do research because they get fellowships and better facilities,” said human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar, who presided over the meeting.

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