India is sitting on a demographic goldmine: over 600 million citizens under 25, yet only 10,000 students gain admission to the IITs each year. When Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently called on the IITs to play a central role in building an Atmanirbhar Bharat by 2047, it was a wake-up call. With such immense potential going untapped, the question is stark: how can a system that admits such a tiny fraction of aspirants hope to meet both national ambitions and global demand for Indian talent?
Expand enrollment, expand opportunity
Some progress is visible. Five of the newer IITs: Palakkad, Dharwad, Jammu, Bhilai, and Tirupati will add 1,364 seats in 2025–26, with a planned intake increase of nearly 28 per cent by 2028–29. Laudable, yes, but far from enough. Each year, 1.2 million candidates chase those 10,000 IIT seats, making for an acceptance rate of barely 1 per cent.
Meanwhile, China has pursued expansion at an entirely different scale. Its top 10 universities alone graduate more than 120,000 engineers every year, over ten times the output of the entire IIT system combined. Each of those universities enrolls roughly 60,000 students, meaning a single Chinese institution can house more students than all of India’s 23 IITs put together. Unless India matches ambition with scale, it will find itself permanently behind.
Shift to frontier technologies
The academic focus must also shift. For decades, IITs have excelled in the traditional engineering disciplines that powered the industrial age. But the economy of the 21st century will be driven by new domains like artificial intelligence, sustainability, battery technology, health sciences, Biotechnology, space, and quantum computing. Embedding these areas at the core of the undergraduate experience will ensure that India produces not just more engineers, but the leaders of tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
From teaching to research powerhouses
Equally critical is research. For India to compete globally, IITs must evolve from teaching-focused institutions into research powerhouses aligned with national priorities. That requires increasing R&D spending as a share of GDP, which remains among the lowest globally. It also requires incentivising collaborative, team-based science and strengthening partnerships between IITs, industry, and national research labs. Encouraging undergraduates to participate in research early would not only spark curiosity but also build the pipeline of innovators India needs at scale.
Countries that have invested steadily in research and higher education, like the US, and more recently China, have expanded their scientific and innovation capacity dramatically. Data from the latest Nature Index Research Leaders from 2024 shows a striking shift: traditional research powerhouses in the West are losing ground to institutions that have spent the last two decades building capacity. When it comes to investment, we still lag. The US spends 3.5 per cent. Israel, which is in 17th position on the index, leads in R&D spending at 5.4 per cent. China spends 2.4 per cent of its GDP on R&D. India, by contrast, spends just 0.7 per cent.
Competing at a global scale
India must think globally. None of the IITs currently figures among the top 100 universities worldwide. If these institutions are to anchor India’s place in the global knowledge economy, they must aim higher, competing with the U.S., Europe, China, and East Asia. This means recruiting world-class faculty, building international collaborations, and creating ecosystems where ideas can travel seamlessly from lab to market.
Finally, the brain drain remains a stark reminder of underinvestment at home. According to government data, as of 2024, over 760,000 Indian students pursued higher education abroad, with most never returning. Unless India creates opportunities at scale, it will continue to export its sharpest minds instead of harnessing them for national growth.
India’s demographic dividend offers a narrow three-decade window to convert youth into innovation power before aging erodes the advantage. The call for an Atmanirbhar Bharat cannot be met with incremental change. It demands bold expansion, visionary investment, and an unrelenting commitment to excellence. India must act now before its demographic edge fades, before its talent is forced to seek opportunities abroad, and before other nations lock in leadership in the technologies of tomorrow. The question is not whether India can afford to scale its IITs, but whether it can afford not to.
Rahul Mehta is the Founder of Mehta Family Foundation
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.