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With pressure being put on the IITs to relax the cutoffs marks for the reserved category, entry to the IITs would be further lowered for the SC/ST candidates. While the seats for the general category will remain unchanged, the SC and ST seats will go up by more than 50% in the coming 3 years.
The IITs feel that lowering the cutoffs even further would mean a large population of students will have to be admitted at some really low scores. For example, last year the aggregate score of the last general candidate admitted was 206/194 whereas the score of the last SC/ST candidate admitted was 126. Every year, nearly 50% of the seats reserved for the SC/ST candidates remain vacant as the students are not even able to secure the minimum marks required for admission. Even the ones who get admission, 25% are asked to leave because of their poor performance.
A former IIT Kharagpur director feels that what this increase in quota will actually do is repeat the scenario of the 1980s when the Government forced the IITs to admit those students who had scored zeros.
