3 min readUpdated: Aug 25, 2026 03:53 PM IST
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has capped the duration of its PhD programmes at eight years for all new registrations, after an internal review found that some doctorates had remained pending for more than 10 years.
The review, aimed at understanding why candidates were taking so long to finish, has also cleared a large backlog, pushing the institute to a record 620 PhD degrees for the 2025-26 academic year. It is the highest number in IIT Bombay’s history, and the institute says it is the first time any IIT has crossed the 600 mark in a year.
“We took a review of ongoing PhDs to try and understand the hold-ups. The idea was to work on solving those issues and encourage candidates to reduce the time spent on PhDs,” said director Shireesh Kedare.
The delays, Kedare said, had several causes: supervisors occupied with other projects, candidates shifting to other work, and external candidates moving on. The Covid-19 pandemic had added to the hold-ups. Some PhDs had stayed pending for over a decade. The institute then set the eight-year ceiling for fresh registrations.
Before this year, IIT Bombay had never crossed 500 PhD degrees in a year, Kedare said. Of the 620 being awarded, 77 are in chemical engineering, 62 in electrical engineering, 49 in mechanical engineering and 40 in the humanities department.
The record PhD count comes at the institute’s 64th convocation, held over the weekend, across which IIT Bombay is awarding 3,763 degrees to 3,442 students. These include 1,713 undergraduate, 1,430 postgraduate and 620 PhD degrees. The graduating batch has 791 women and 2,651 men.
Among the undergraduate degrees, 28 students have been awarded a three-year Bachelor of Science (BS) degree, an early-exit option IIT Bombay introduced for students enrolled in its four-year BTech programme. Students who complete the required credits can leave the four-year course with a BS. An institute official said the option could help students who want to pursue a start-up, or those unable to finish the four-year programme.
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A medal distribution ceremony was held at the convocation hall on the evening of August 22, with Umesh Waghmare, secretary in the Department of Science and Technology, as the chief guest.