Parliament Approves 6 New IITs Across The Country

Parliament has passed a bill in regard to opening 6 new IITs across the country including Jammu and Tirupathi. Under the Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Bill 2016, which was approved yesterday by the Rajya Sabha by voice vote, IITs will also be started in Palakkad (Kerala), Goa, Dharward (Karnataka) and Bhilai (Chhattisgarh).

Quality of education at IITs

HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said the IITs are the centre of excellence and they will continue to remain like that.

"We will not allow anything that will lower their standards. Actually, we all should try to improve them further and make them really world class institutes. Therefore quality is absolutely important," he said.

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Funding for IITs

On funding for the premier institutes, he said there would not be any financial constraints for the growth of IITs.

The government is already working on a scheme for financing higher education infrastructure needs, particularly research infrastructure requirements, he added.

"Rs 20,000 crore will be leveraged through government's own contribution of nearly Rs 1,000 crore which is promised in this Budget and another Rs 1,000 crore will be coming from partners like nationalised banks or something," Javadekar said.

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Lack of faculty in the IITs

Admitting lack of faculty in the IITs, the HRD Minister said currently there are around 30 per cent vacancies in the premier institutes.

"We need to take proactive steps in this regard, including interviews of talent who are out of the country. We want to fill up the vacancies as soon as possible, in a continuous process. It's our priority," Javadekar said.

Fee Structure for IITs

The ST and SC communities, from the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category and physically challenged have the full waiver of fees in the IITs and NITs. He said those whose family income is below Rs 9 lakh per annum also get education loan at zero percent interest rate.

"So fee hike is only for people who have an annual income of more than Rs 9 lakh. So what is against poor students? We are incurring an expense of Rs 6 lakh per year per student. So somebody has to pay," Javadekar said.

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He said the government will also see to the timely completion of Ph.D.'s in the premier institutes.
He added that the government is already working on having 20 world class institutes, 10 in the government sector and 10 in the private sector.

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