MHRD asks NITs to add supernumerary seats to bring more gender diversity

New Delhi: Concerned over the low ratio of female students entering premier engineering institutions, MHRD has asked National Institutes of Technology (NITs) Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur (IIEST) to add supernumerary seats to accommodate more female candidate towards bringing greater gender diversity at these campuses. A similar move has already been initiated in Indian Institutes of Technology, the elite league of engineering institutions in India.
After having pressed IITs to accommodate more female candidates, the latest MHRD direction to NITs can significantly boost the number of girl students in the engineering classes at these institutions from the academic year 2018-19. Last year, the NITs could only admit 14 per cent girls among the total new students entering their engineering programmes at under-graduate level.   
In 2017, the number of female candidates admitted to NITs altogether was merely 2500 as compared to 3,900 students the previous year.
There are a total of 31 National Institutes of Technology across the country with an annual intake capacity of over 17000 seats.
According to the MHRD officials, the seats for the boys will not be reduced and in case sufficient number of girls does not make it to the merit list, additional seats will be added across programmes to accommodate more girls. This, according to officials, will help make build diversity at campuses and also will be in sync with emerging industry practices of a gender diverse work force.    
Detailing the mechanism for admitting more girl students, officials said that supernumerary seats will be added only if the share of girls in the class is less than 14 percent for admission year 2018-19. With the same mechanism, the share of girls, however, will be increased gradually to 17 per cent in 2019 and 20 percent in 2020.
A similar provision for girl candidates at IITs is expected to boost the number of female students by 4 per cent which turns out to be a total of 1,540 seats as compared to around 1,100 female candidates admitted their year.