IITs, IIMs to open doors for more

DIDN'T GET through this year's CAT? Take heart, the ministry of human resources development plans to increase the intake of students at all levels in IIMs as well as IITs.

Published on: Jan 3, 2006, 01:14:00 IST

PTI | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

DIDN'T GET through this year's CAT? Take heart, the ministry of human resources development plans to increase the intake of students at all levels in IIMs as well as IITs.

In a new action plan prepared to give a boost to higher education in the coming academic year, the HRD ministry wants to increase the number of students at the undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral levels. "It is for the IITs and the IIMs to specify the additional seats. We have told them that the intake has been increased to meet the demands of the market," said a senior ministry official.

The new courses, the official added, would bring more revenue to the IITs and the IIMs. At present, there are about 23,000 students in seven IITs and about 10,000 students in IIMs. But the institutes lose money on each student because of the high input costs. For example, an IIT spends Rs 1.90 lakh on a student every year whereas the money recovered from the student is only Rs 30,000.

"More students will help to bridge the gap," the official commented.

Though the opening of new IITs has been ruled out, the ministry wants these premier institutes to open study centres in the far-flung areas of the country.

"One such centre of IIT-Kanpur has been opened in Amethi. Each IIT should have at least one centre," an official said.

The ministry has already decided to upgrade seven institutes to the level of IITs. Officials estimate that the upgradation will require additional funds of Rs 1,000-1,500 crore depending on the final report of the expert committee which is constituted to study the vision documents of the seven institutions.

"We have asked for Rs 21 crore for the next financial year when the basic work will start. The money will be allocated once the committee submits its report by mid-January. The upgradation will commence from 2007-08," the official said.

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

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.