India's leading chain of technical education institutes, National Institute of Technology (NIT), will now have student ambassadors traveling abroad to increase the reach of its flagship scheme.

"We will appoint 50 to 60 student ambassadors to promote NIT's scheme for foreign students abroad," Dr Sandeep Sancheti, Director, NIT Suratkal, Karnataka, said.

He said that its ambitious scheme, Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA), could not garner much attention as NIT has not been able to market its potential.

"We have not marketed our potential strongly. The information was not disseminated to abroad properly. Our process was not much transparent," Dr Sancheti conceded.

NIT Suratkal, which has been entrusted the task of popularising this scheme for next three years, said that they are eyeing for the market in Europe and US, where there is truly international clientele.

The Central Government funded institutions -- NIT, has increased the number of institutions implementing DASA scheme from 20 to 31, this year onwards.

Dr Sancheti said that NIT in South India are more preferred compared to other parts of the country amongst the foreign students.

DASA scheme started in 2001 aims to facilitate entry of foreign nations, person of Indian origin and Non Resident Indians to Indian education system, Dr Sancheti said.

NIT has increased number of seats under this scheme from 1408 in 2009-10 to 2204 in 2010-11.

The institute has also reduced the processing fee from 350 to 250  US dollars.