In spite of 1,138 total seats available in various undergraduate courses at IIT-Kharagpur, the institute has been able to provide admission to 1,011 students this year.

The reason being the failure of the reserved category students to clear the minimum cut-offs, sources said.

Among the total students admitted, 667 belong to general category and the rest are from reserved categories.

So the institute has transferred the 127 remaining seats to its preparatory courses as mandated by the Union HRD Ministry.

“Under the preparatory programme, the students are taught physics, chemistry and mathematics at the institute and at the end of the term they appear for an examination,” said Prof A N Samanata, Chairman of the JEE-2009, IIT-Kharagpur.

“If they qualify in the examination they are inducted into the programme, the next year,” he added. According to Samanta, the 127 students enrolled for the preparatory courses are from SC, ST and PH (physically handicapped) categories.

Last year too, the institute had failed to fill up 100 seats.

There is also a growing concern about the number of high-ranking students who are not keen to join IIT-Kharagpur.

The officials of the institute, however, dismissed the claim.

“I personally feel that most of the students want to join the IITs located in the metros. That is why over the last two years a lot of students are joining IIT-Mumbai and IIT-Delhi,” said a senior professor at the institute.

“An institute, however, cannot be judged only on the basis of being popular among the students but also on the quality of research and the industrial consultancy,” the professor added.

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