IIT plans go for toss

Sources said IIMs have limited plans to increase intake in order to maintain high standards and the faculty crunch.

Updated on: Apr 19, 2006, 04:01:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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When the IITs had decided to take in more students -- before the HRD reservation proposal -- they did so, among other things, to generate more resources through increased placements and get more grants for research projects. For placements not only earn these institutes royalties, but also a better placement record enhances its reputation in the research field.

HRD minister Arjun Singh’s decision to enforce 27 per cent reservation for the other backward classes has now derailed these plans, fear senior IIT and IIM faculty members. For one, more reserved category students are expected to put off private firms from queuing up for placements. This in turn means lesser royalties and fewer research projects too.

In view of the increasing demand for technical education in the country, the HRD ministry had wanted to fund the IITs’ expansion plans, asking them double intake in the next five years. Accordingly, in the next two academic years, the six IIMs and seven IITs had planned to take 3,000-3,500 more students. But now this increase would be entirely absorbed by the reserved category leaving the general pool either unaffected or actually reduced. To offset the effect of the quota, the IITs will have to admit over 6,000 additional students. “We don’t know where the resources will come for this,” an official said.

IIMs’ problem is different, since they give scholarships to reserved category students for meet education expenses. With Arjun Singh saying similar scholarship will be available for OBC students as well, IIM sources point out they are looking at a huge financial burden unless the Centre agrees to share it. Sources said IIMs have limited plans to increase intake in order to maintain high standards and the faculty crunch.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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