The Hindu Business Line : PM: 20 new IITs, 7 IIMs, 30 Central varsities on cards

Chennai, Dec. 19 The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, today said that apart from the proposed eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, the Government proposed to set up another 20.

Furthermore, in the “second wave of institution building”, the Government would set up 30 new Central Universities, seven Indian Institutes of Management, five Indian Institutes of Science and 10 National Institutes of Technology.

Addressing ‘Pan IIT 2008’, a meeting of IIT alumni, over the video, Dr Singh said that also on the anvil were plans to set up 373 new colleges in districts with low enrolment in college education and a thousand new polytechnics. Dr Singh noted that for every student who got an opportunity to study in IITs, there are at least 3 to 4 who are as bright, but are denied the opportunity because of the intake capacity constraints.

“This is highly regrettable because it denies opportunity to thousands of deserving young men and women. If India is to become a global leader in science and technology as well as an economic super power, such talent must not go unutilised. Many more such institutes are needed,” he said.

While there is a need to build more institutions, “we need to keep in mind two other important factors.

The first is the need to strengthen the faculty and research capabilities of the IITs,” he said.

“We must ensure that the faculty is world class, especially as we expand, and that we see more productive research coming out of these institutions. If our standards are to be global, so should our reach. We should be open to the best from anywhere in the world,” he said.

In an ensuing panel discussion, the point about foreign institutions setting up shop in India came up. Prof. Sanjay G Dhande, Director, IIT, Kanpur said that IITs need not have anything to fear from competition. The IITs, he said, must come up with a game plan to be a significant member of global universities.

Prof. Dhande said that IITs should work towards credit transfers (across institutions), award of joint degrees and student exchanges.

On the question of the appropriateness of the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE), which admit students into the IITs, it was accepted by many panelists that the JEE was a very tough examination.

Participating in a panel discussion, Prof M S Ananth, Director, IIT-Madras, said that he wanted the IITs to get into medical education. Even as of today, there are 20 doctors working as faculty in IIT-M. The institute is offering courses in areas such as clinical engineering and instrumentation.

Prof. Ananth said he wanted to expand the IITs course offering in medicine.

He, however, stressed that he did not want the IITs to be “constrained” by the All India Council for Technical Education.