The number of students taking the examination increased substantially each year with over 485,000 sitting IIT-JEE 2011. This represented an increase of 30,000 students (6.5%) from 2010.[9]
The availability of seats in recent years is as shown below:
| Institute | Intake (2003) | Intake (2007) | Intake (2008) | Intake (2009) | Intake (2010) | Intake (2011)[10] | Intake (2012)[11] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IIT (BHU) Varanasi | 568 | 686 | 766 | 881 | 1057 | 1057 | 1057 |
| IIT Bhubaneshwar | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | ||
| IIT Bombay | 600 | 574 | 648 | 746 | 880 | 880 | 880 |
| IIT Delhi | 552 | 553 | 626 | 721 | 851 | 851 | 851 |
| IIT Gandhinagar | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | ||
| IIT Guwahati | 350 | 365 | 435 | 498 | 588 | 615 | 615 |
| IIT Hyderabad | 120 | 120 | 120 | 140 | 140 | ||
| IIT Indore | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | |||
| IIT Kanpur | 456 | 541 | 608 | 702 | 827 | 827 | 827 |
| IIT Kharagpur | 659 | 874 | 988 | 1138 | 1341 | 1341 | 1370 |
| IIT Madras | 554 | 540 | 612 | 713 | 838 | 838 | 838 |
| IIT Mandi | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | |||
| IIT Patna | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | ||
| IIT Rajasthan | 120 | 120 | 120 | 160 | 160 | ||
| IIT Roorkee | 546 | 746 | 884 | 1013 | 1155 | 1155 | 1155 |
| IIT Ropar | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | 120 | ||
| ISM Dhanbad (to be converted into IIT)[1] | 444 | 658 | 705 | 923 | 1012 | 1034 | 1034 |
| Total | 4583 | 5537 | 6992 | 8295 | 9509 | 9618 | 9647 |
| Attendance | 455,000 | 485,000[9] | 512,000 |
From 2008, six new IITs were opened with 120 seats each, increasing the total number of seats to almost 7000. For 2009, admissions were made to two more IITs, namely IIT Indore and IIT Mandi (Himachal Pradesh) taking the seat count to almost 8300. In 2011, with additional courses in several old and new IITs, the total seat count crossed 9600.
Criticism
In 2012, Super 30 founder and mathematician Anand Kumar criticised the New Admission Norms, saying that the decision of the IIT Council to give chance to students having top 20% from various boards in the class 12 examinations, was a decision in haste. "This is one decision that will go against the poor, who don't have the opportunity to study in elite schools," he added.[12]
IIT-JEE was conducted only in English and Hindi, which was criticised as making it harder for students where regional languages, like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu, Oriya,Bengali, Marathi, Assamese or Gujarati, are more prominent. In September 2011, the Gujarat High Court acted on a Public Interest Litigation by the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad, demanding the exams be conducted in Gujarati.[13] A second petition was made in October by Navsari's Sayaji Vaibhav Sarvajanik Pustakalaya Trust.[14] Another petition was made at the Madras High Court for conducting the exam in Tamil. In the petition it was claimed that not conducting the exam in the regional languages is in violation of article 14 of the Constitution of India. PMK, political party in Tamil Nadu holds a demonstration at Chennai for conducting IIT-JEE and other national entrance exams in regional languages also, particularly Tamil in Tamil Nadu.[15] Pattali Makkal Katchi party has filed Public Interest Litigation in Madras High Court for conducting IIT JEE entrance exam in Tamil also. They submitted that every year 7.63 lakh students were completing 12th standard in Tamil Nadu, 75% of them from Tamil Medium. They had to take the entrance exam in English or Hindi, neither of which was their medium of instruction nor their mother tongue, and so were denied their fundamental right to take up the entrance exam in their medium of instruction, based on their mother tongue.[16][17]Shiv Sena urged MHRD to conduct IITJEE and other national undergraduate entrance exams in regional languages, particularly Marathi language in Maharastra.[18]
