Mumbai: Three in five girls seeking admission to BTech programmes at IIT-Bombay this year will be able to access free education. Over the next two years, the premier institute aims to expand this financial support further to cover 100% girls admitted to their BTech programmes.What began as an initiative by an alumnus and his wife to provide tuition assistance for 60 young women securing admission to the Powai institute from the 2026-27 academic year has now turned into a larger movement. Under the scholarship programme, called the WINGS (Women INspiring Growth in STEM), the institute is inviting individuals, alumni, and organisations to contribute anything from Rs 2 lakh for one year to Rs 8 lakh for the full four-year BTech programme, to support the education of girls at the institute.The initiative was first announced in Sept last year. “It aims to remove barriers for girls to pursue STEM education, especially for students from rural and weaker economic backgrounds who are otherwise unable to pursue an IIT education despite being eligible. The idea is to promote their participation,” said IIT-B director Shireesh Kedare.WINGS is anchored by the institute’s distinguished alumnus and businessman Bharat Desai and his wife Neerja Sethi. “They have provided substantial funding for the initiative, thereby helping us to expand the scope of the institute’s scholarship programmes with this special initiative,” said Upendra Bhandarkar, dean, alumni and corporate relations.“While the goal of the initiative is to cover all girls who secure admissions to the BTech programme, in the inaugural year, the institute aims to cover at least 60% of their strength,” said Bhandarkar, adding that the institute aims to promote the programme to ensure wider participation from girls even before they appear for their JEE. “We wish to ensure that meritorious bright girls are not deprived of the opportunity to study at the IIT, for lack of funds. We also hope it will help schoolgirls to think of and aspire for an IIT education, which they may not be able to consider otherwise.”To improve the gender ratio on campuses, IITs have added 20% supernumerary seats for girl students in phases since 2018. In 2025, 3,633 female-only seats were allotted, and 31 female candidates secured seats through the gender-neutral pool. The overall percentage of girl students on campus was 20.15% of the total 18,188 admitted students. At IIT-B, 267 girls were admitted to the first-year BTech programmes in the year.As per the WINGS programme statement, the institute aims to incentivise families, encouraging them to support their daughters’ ambitions regardless of distance, to allow girls from rural and underprivileged backgrounds to dream as big as their urban counterparts, and to give them financial freedom that in turn will allow them to focus on research and innovation.
