The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the expansion of academic and infrastructure capacity at five newly established Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) located in Andhra Pradesh (IIT Tirupati), Kerala (IIT Palakkad), Chhattisgarh (IIT Bhilai), Jammu & Kashmir (IIT Jammu), and Karnataka (IIT Dharwad).

The total outlay for this initiative is Rs 1.18 trillion (approximately £11.8 billion), to be spent over a four-year period from 2025–26 to 2028–29. This strategic investment aims to bolster India’s higher education sector and foster advanced research and innovation.

The expansion plan includes the creation of 130 new faculty posts (at Professor level and above) and the establishment of five state-of-the-art research parks to enhance collaboration between academia and industry.

As a result, the total student capacity across these five IITs will increase by over 6,500—from the current 7,111 to 13,687—across undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programmes. Annual intake will increase incrementally, adding 1,364 students in the first year, 1,738 in the second, 1,767 in the third, and 1,707 in the fourth year.

This expansion will allow more students nationwide to pursue world-class engineering education. The move is expected to generate employment through recruitment of faculty, researchers, administrative and support staff. It will also spur regional economic development through demand for housing, transport, and local services.

Though these IITs are situated in specific states, admissions remain open to candidates across India, reinforcing their role as national institutions.

According to the 2025–26 Union Budget, the total number of students across all 23 IITs has doubled in the past decade—from 65,000 to 135,000. The new infrastructure will support this growing demand, particularly in IITs established after 2014, which began operations from temporary campuses between 2015–16 and 2016–17 and are now functioning from their permanent sites.