Over 81,000 IIT, IISER students on full or partial scholarship over 3 years: Education ministry

NEW DELHI: A total of 81,108 students received full tuition waivers in undergraduate courses at Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) over the last three years, the ministry of education informed Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

More than 47% students received full and partial fee waivers at the IITs in just the academic year ending in 2025. The education ministry stated: “In year 2024-25, more than 37% of the students have received full waiver/ full remission and more than 10% of the students have received 2/3rd remission (partial) in tuition fee of UG program in IITs.”

The table below shows the distribution of beneficiaries over the past three years.

IISER, IIT Fees: Total number of students to receive full waivers

Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan was responding to a question from Samirul Islam, MP from West Bengal, representing Trinamool Congress.

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IIT scholarships: Eligibility, categories

The fee waiver policy is available only to students from historically-marginalised communities or the upper-caste poor for whom seats are reserved. It was introduced when BTech fees were doubled in 2016.

Currently, IITs and IISERs follow the central reservation policy – 15% for Scheduled Castes (SC), 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes ( ST), 27% for Other Backward Classes belonging to the Non-Creamy Layer (OBC-NCL), up to 10% for economically weaker sections (EWS) and 5% for persons with disabilities (PwD).

To be eligible for complete fee waiver for SC, ST and PwD students and full remission of fee for EWS students at the IITs and IISERs, the applicants must come from families whose annual income is under Rs 1 lakh. Those whose families earn between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh annually are eligible for 2/3rd remission of fee.

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PMRF grants

The same question also sought data on disbursal of Prime Minister's Research Fellowships (PMRF). The ministry said 3,688 scholars were admitted through this programme.

Further, in union budget 2025-26, the government has announced 10,000 fellowships under PMRF 2.0 for “technological research in IITs and IISCs with enhanced financial support”. Launched in 2018, the scheme has been designed for improving the quality of research at IITs and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru.