The article is written by our alumnus Yogesh K. Upadhyaya (chemical 1977)
Among the professional disciplines, engineering is the first choice of students, where a 4-year degree is enough to land a comfortable job. The demand for engineering seats has increased post-independence, from about 3,000 in 1947 to 20,000 in 1970 to 80,000 in 1985. Currently, it is estimated that between 300,000 to 350,000 engineering graduates pass out from over 1300 colleges. However, as a member of AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) states, the quality of education provided by these colleges drops sharply after first 50 to 100 colleges.
Still, the competition is fierce. This year, 300,000 students (a jump of over 50% over last year) appeared for IIT-JEE exam for 5,444 available seats at seven IITs, IT-BHU and ISM, Dhanbad. For AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Exam), 525,000 students appeared for about 10,000 seats at 20 NITs and also for equal number of other colleges. For admission to BITS (Pilani and Goa campus), 53,842 candidates appeared for 1,400 available seats.
During first 10 years (1952-1962), five IITs were established; while in the next 40 years, only two IITs were set-up. Surely, there is a need for more IITs.