By: Sakshi Awasthi on April 19, 2018
With the purpose of improving the gender balance ratio in the Engineering Courses, Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) is set to increase 779 seats for Female candidates from the academic year 2018. The JEE Advanced examination is scheduled to be conducted on May 20, 2018 and numerous candidates aspiring to seek admissions in 23 IITs will appear for this examination. The JEE Main examination was successfully conducted on April 8, April 15 and April 16 and the JEE Advanced aspirants who qualify Paper 1 of JEE Main examination will appear for JEE Advanced 2018 exam.

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The decision regarding the increased number of seats for female candidates was taken almost a year ago by the IIT Council but its implementation will commence from this academic year as the overall number of ‘supernumerary' seats is announced recently. Earlier the sub-committee of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) notified that enough number of female candidates clear JEE Advanced examination but the enrollment is much lower. The step has been taken with the intention to improve female enrollment for the courses.
Out of the total number of 779 seats, the maximum number of seats are increased by IIT Kharagpur i.e. of 113 seats. IIT Dhanbad has increased 95 seats, followed by IIT Kanpur's 79 seats, IIT Banaras Hindu University's 76 seats. IIT Roorkee, Delhi and Bombay have offered 59, 58 and 57 additional seats respectively. The IIT Council is targeting to achieve 14% female enrollment for the academic year 2018, followed by 17% and 20% in the upcoming years. Currently, the percentage of female candidate's enrollment is 8%. For the academic year 2017, nearly 11 thousand candidates were admitted to 23 IITs, out of which merely 1006 were females. The IITs may also provide partial fees exemption and scholarships to female aspirants.
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