IIT fees raised from Rs 90,000 to Rs 2 lakh

New Delhi: The admission fees of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was today raised from Rs. 90,000 to Rs. two lakh for the next academic session. A proposal for such a hike in annual fees of IITs was approved by an IIT panel last month. The Standing Committee of IIT Council (SCIC), a body comprising of IIT directors and senior officials, had, however, proposed a three-fold hike. Currently, the IITs have a 15 percent reservation for SCs, 7.5 percent for STs and 27 percent for OBCs. According to sources, the fee of the SC, ST, disabled students and students belonging to families with annual income below Rs. one lakh will be waived. Students belonging to families with annual income below Rs. five lakh will get waiver of two-third of the fee. This comes a day after Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani promised of a fee waiver for all the SC/ST, Dalit and physically challenged students of the 23 branches of the IIT. Irani said those students, who come from families whose annual income is less than Rs. five lakh, will be given a 66 percent concession in tuition fees. She added that the move would benefit nearly 50 percent of the 60,471 students enrolled in India's top engineering institutes.