Cabinet approves six new IITs

Cabinet approves six new IITs

NEW DELHI: Six new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will be set up in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala and Karnataka with the Union Cabinet today clearing a proposal in this regard.

A meeting of the Cabinet presided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval for operationalisation of these IITs initially by forming of Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 in order to give them legal status till the amendment for their incorporation in The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 is enacted. At present, there are 16 IITs in the country.

Each new IIT will have an initial intake of 180 students in its first year which would increase to 450 in the second year and to 928 (840 Undergraduates, 80 Postgraduates and 8 PhDs) in the third year of their operation, an official statement here said.

The total cost for running these IITs is Rs 1,411.80 crore and will be incurred between 2015-16 and 2018-19, it added.

The new IITs will be operated from their temporary campuses for the initial period of three years before shifting to their permanent campuses in the 4th year. Each IIT will have a sanctioned strength of faculty members, with a faculty-student ratio of 1:10.

The statement also added that the six new IITs will be registered as Societies as the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, contains no provision to enable establishment of new IITs.

"Every new IIT commenced since its enactment has required an amendment to the Act itself. In light of this, it would be appropriate to establish the new IITs through the formation of Societies as it has not been possible to amend the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 to make provision for establishment of new IITs, before the admissions to academic session 2015-16 in these new IITs," the statement added.

While the official statement did not give the name of the cities where the IITs would come up, sources said it is expected that the new institutes would come up in Tirupati, Palakkad, Jammu, Bhilai-Durg, Dharwar and Goa.

There are already 16 IITs one each at Gandhinagar, Bombay, New Delhi, Roorkee, Kharagpur, Chennai, Guwahati, Indore, Kanpur, Jodhpur, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Patna, Ropar, Mandi and Varanasi.

Source | Business Line | 4 December 2015