New Delhi, July 27: The number of BTech seats lying vacant in IITs in 2017 is the highest in the past four years.

Of the 10,962 seats available in the 23 IITs, 121 berths remained vacant after completion of the counselling for admission, minister of state for human resource development Mahendra Nath Pandey told the Rajya Sabha today in a written reply.

The number of vacant seats was 96 last year, 50 in 2015 and three in 2014.

IIT Banaras Hindu University has the maximum number of empty seats this time - 32 - followed by IIT (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad (23), IIT Jammu (13) and IIT Kharagpur (9).

All the seats have been filled up at IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad and IIT Jodhpur. One seat each is vacant at IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Ropar, IIT Palakkad and IIT Goa.

IIT Banaras Hindu University has been witnessing high vacancies every year. Institute director Rajeev Sangal said the IIT was expecting a few more students soon.

"What happens is some students turn up a little late. We will wait for two-three days more before winding up the admission process," Sangal said.

The last round of counselling was held on July 19. All the IITs were supposed to complete admissions by July 25.

An IIT Council official said the institutes had been asked to discontinue some of the courses that were not attracting students. The IIT Joint Admission Board might meet soon to discuss such courses and take a decision on steps to bring down the number of vacancies.

The IITs, especially the new ones, increased their intake by 400 seats this year.

The IITs, the National Institutes of Technology and a few other technical institutions held common counselling. Of the 19,000 seats in the 31 NITs, 461 remained vacant after seven rounds of counselling. The NITs held a special round of counselling today.