The extended list increased the pool of qualified candidates to roughly 32,000. (File)
The Ministry of Human Resource Development is likely to hold a meeting of the IIT Council on August 21, sources said. The Council, which is the highest decision-making body of the IITs and is headed by the HRD Minister, last met at IIT-Bombay on April 28 last year.
Although the agenda for the meeting hasn’t been finalised, the matter of JEE-Advanced and its difficulty level is expected to be discussed. According to ministry sources, the government is likely to ask IITs to review the entrance examination pattern in the context of fewer aspirants qualifying the JEE-Advanced this year.
The first merit list this year had about 18,000 candidates, which was the lowest in eight years. With some IITs expressing concerns about filling up all 11,000 seats based on the merit list, the government, eventually, issued directions to IIT Kanpur, the organising institute this year, to release an extended merit list. The extended list increased the pool of qualified candidates to roughly 32,000.