The prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur on Friday described the Centre's move on quota as "disastrous" saying this will compromise the entire academic standards of the IITs and demanded "reconsideration" of the reservation policy.
"It would be most disastrous to impose a 27.5 per cent quota on the IITs in an ostensibly 'fair way' by increasing the number of seats...If a sudden increase of faculty is imposed on us by a drastic increase in seats, the entire academic standing of the IITs will be compromised," the faculty of IIT Kanpur wrote in a letter to the President and the Prime Minister.
The letter, signed by 125 faculty members, to President APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also talked about the shortage of the faculty in the institute.
"This would mean rapidly increasing the seats substantially... We have doubled our intake in recent years, so the IITs are already short of faculty," it said.
Asserting that few applicants meet the exacting standards of academic excellence required for recruitment as faculty, they said "many institutions in the country have a good undergraduate programmes, but only very few other than the IITs can train students in the highly-specialised engineering and scientific skills required in India if it is to become a developed country."
{{/usCountry}}Asserting that few applicants meet the exacting standards of academic excellence required for recruitment as faculty, they said "many institutions in the country have a good undergraduate programmes, but only very few other than the IITs can train students in the highly-specialised engineering and scientific skills required in India if it is to become a developed country."
{{/usCountry}}"We request you to reconsider the reservation policy, and do everything you can to preserve the IITs for the future generations of India and, indeed, for the very future of our country," the two-page letter said.