A total of 16,598 seats are up for grabs in all 23- Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) this year, including 1,567 supernumerary seats for female candidates. This marks a marginal increase in the number of seats from last year.

The total number of candidates who appeared for the JEE (Advanced) this year was 1,56,089.

The admission process for the premier technology institutes across the country is set to begin from September 12, a day after the results of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced are declared.

The much-awaited seat matrix for this year’s admission process has been finally declared by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA).

There is a marginal increase in the number of total seats in all 23-IITs, from 16,232 last year to 16,598 this year. Even the supernumerary seats offered to female students, an initiative to encourage gender diversity in the prestigious technology institutes, has seen a marginal increase from 1,534 last year to 1,567 this year.

“Several initiatives have been taken by the Ministry of Education, Government of India to improve female enrolment in IITs. Various IITs (including IIT Bombay) conduct Open House outreach events, with the goal of encouraging female students to qualify and secure admission into IITs,” shared an official from JoSAA.

Among the few popular IITs from the old-ones, IIT Bombay has 1,360 seats to offer this year while IIT Delhi has 1,209. IIT Madras, Kharagpur and Roorkee have 1,133, 1,869 and 1,353 seats to offer respectively. All these seats include the supernumerary seats offered for female candidates.

After the JEE (Advanced) exam on Sunday, August 28, the candidates had been eagerly awaiting the seat Matrix. Of total 2.5lakh students who qualified for the JEE (Advanced) after clearing JEE (Main); only 1,60,038 had registered for the entrance test. Eventually, only 1,56,089 appeared for the test on August 28 at 577 centres across 124 cities.

The first seat allotment list is scheduled to be released on September 23.