New IITs have few takers, IIT Hyderabad gets only 20 candidates out of top 1000 rank holders

It seems that the new IITs have a long way to go in attracting candidates as they are often compared with the old ones.

Among the 10 new IITs, including IIT Ropar, IIT Mandi, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Hyderabad is popular but only 20 students were roped in out of top 1,000 rank holders.

Some heads have the opinion that the new ones will be compared to the old IITs and it would at least take then four to five years to be able to compete with old ones.

"The new IITs need more time for anyone to judge them. Institutes take decades and even centuries to become globally established," IIT Ropar director Sarit K Das told Economic Times.

Meanwhile, after Hyderabad, IIT Indore was preferred by students as 15 students enrolled out of top 2,000 rank holders.

IIT Ropar got 11 and Mandi and Gandhinagar and the Indian School of Mines Dhanbad got one each.

“Our students prefer the old IITs and then the established NITs (National Institutes of Technology) to the new IITs," Aakash Chaudhry, director of Aakash Education Services, a coaching institute that trains students for the JEE and other engineering entrance exams, told ET.

While the JEE (Advanced) is taken by candidates seeking admission to the IITs, JEE (Main) is for entry into the NITs and other technical institutions funded by the central and state governments.