Cabinet nod to expand infra, academic capacity of five IITs

The Union Cabinet on 7 May, Wednesday, approved the expansion of the academic and infrastructure capacity of five new IIT, which were set up in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Karnataka.

The total cost for the proposed expansion has been pegged at Rs 11,828.79 crore over four years from 2025-26 to 2028-29, an official statement said.

The Cabinet also approved the creation of 130 faculty posts at the level of professor in these IIT.

Five new state-of-the-art research parks are also coming up to strengthen industry-academia linkage, the statement said.

These IIT are located in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Palakkad in Kerala, Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, Jammu in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, and Dharwad in Karnataka.

Student strength in these IITs will be increased by more than 6,500 in the next four years, with the enhancement of 1,364 students in the first year, 1,738 students in the second year, 1,767 students in the third year and 1,707 students in the fourth year across under graduate, post graduate and PhD programmes put together.

On completion of construction, these five IIT will be able to cater to 13,687 students as against the current student strength of 7,111 — an increase of 6,576 students.

With this increase in the total number of seats, more than 6,500 students will now be able to fulfil their aspirations of studying in the most prestigious and sought-after educational institutions in the country.