Why female admissions at IITs are stuck at 20% and what’s really holding progress back

Despite dedicated efforts to boost gender diversity, female enrolment in undergraduate BTech programmes at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) remains largely stagnant. In 2025, women constituted only 20.15% of the total BTech admissions—just over one in five students. This figure reflects a slight increase from 2020, when women made up 19.90% of total admissions. While the absolute number of female students rose from 3,185 in 2020 to 3,664 in 2025, the increase is proportional to the overall expansion of seats, not a significant shift in gender representation. Impact of the Supernumerary Seats Scheme The Supernumerary Seats Scheme (SSS), introduced in 2018, aimed to reserve 20% of seats exclusively for female candidates in order to address the low share of women in IIT BTe