IIT Madras MA Economics via GATE XH-C1: Cut-offs 2024–26, Seats, Fees

For an Economics graduate, GATE XH-C1 leads to one admission that is decided on the GATE score and nothing else: IIT Madras’s two-year M.A. in Economics. It admitted its first batch through GATE in July 2023. There is no separate entrance test or interview; the brochure says admission is strictly in the order of merit by GATE score. That makes it the one place where your XH-C1 score converts directly into a seat, and where the published closing scores tell you exactly what was needed. This guide sets out those closing scores for 2024, 2025 and 2026 in every category, converts them into marks, and adds the seat matrix and the fees.

IIT Madras 2026 admission brochure, GATE cut-off PDFs 2024–2026 and 2026-27 fee circular.

IIT Madras’s M.A. has four streams (English Studies, Development Studies, Economics and Public Policy), each with 25 seats for Indian students; foreign nationals are supernumerary. Each stream accepts particular XH sections. For an Economics (XH-C1) candidate the brochure’s seat table opens three doors, not one.

All M.A. seats are “Non-HTTA”: they carry no Half-Time Teaching Assistantship, so there is no monthly stipend. The ₹12,400 a month that appears in the same brochure is the M.Tech assistantship. Plan to pay the fees yourself or through a scholarship.

Three patterns are worth knowing. First, 2025 was an outlier: every Economics closing score rose sharply (GEN 737, EWS 619, OBC 527, SC 464) and fell back in 2026. That is the 40-mark cap at work. It pushed every 2025 score up, and many applicants were holding 2025 scores. Second, the reserved-category closing scores are far below GEN. An SC candidate needed 214 and an ST candidate 157 in 2026, both scores that correspond to less than the general qualifying mark. Third, the Development Studies XH-C1 seats close close to the Economics cut-off (604 against 621 for GEN in 2026), so they are a real second chance rather than an easy back door.

Converting a closing score into GATE marks shows the real target. The conversion assumes the score came from the same year’s GATE; a GATE score is valid for three years, so some admitted candidates will have held older scores.

So a general-category candidate who wants a realistic chance at the Economics stream should aim for a score of about 650, which is roughly 53–54 marks on a 2026-type paper. Remember that the GATE rank is among Economics candidates only, and that about 2,950 of them appeared in 2026. A score of 621 meant a rank somewhere in the top hundred.

Set the fees against what else a GATE Economics score buys. A first semester of about ₹61,000, with later semesters lower because the one-time charges are not repeated, is well below the fees most private universities charge for an M.A. in Economics. The trade-off is the missing stipend, so budget for hostel and mess charges from your own funds or a scholarship.

Applications are made on IIT Madras’s M.Tech./M.Sc./M.A. admission portal, usually in spring after GATE results; the 2027 dates are not yet out. Apply to each stream you are eligible for, since a seat in HS2 or HS4 is filled from a separate merit list. Keep your GATE 2027 scorecard, since a score from GATE 2025 or 2026 may also be valid for the 2027 intake. Check the 2027 brochure for which GATE years it accepts, and use your best valid score.