No funds for 6 new IITs

HRD ministry has not been able to release a penny for six new IITs announced earlier this year because of bureaucratic hurdles, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jul 6, 2008, 02:14:12 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Electoral politics over higher education expansion of the HRD ministry has become apparent with the ministry not been able to release a penny for six new IITs announced earlier this year because of bureaucratic hurdles.

According to ministry officials, the money can be released for the six new IITs only after getting the Cabinet’s approval. “We are in the process of doing that,” an official said. Before seeking the Cabinet approval, the HRD ministry asked the IIT-JEE board in May-end to admit 120 students in each of the new IITs to come up in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Punjab, Orissa and Gujarat.

With it came an assurance that finances would not be a crunch for accommodating additional students in the existing IITs. Four IITs — Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Mumbai — would be teaching 120 students in four disciplines in their campuses this year. “The arrangement will work till make-shift or new campuses come up in the state where the IITs have to be set up,” an IIT director said on the condition of anonymity.

Another IIT director said the ministry’s assurance has fallen flat, as they have been asked to spend money from their own resources to set up classes for the students of the new IITs. “The government can release money only after the Cabinet gives approval for the six new IITs,” he added.

Its biggest implication would be on the student teacher ratio, which has already going up to 1:15 as against the norm of 1:9 because of OBC quota implementation and vacant posts. The IITs expect the ratio to further rise to 1:18 because they would not be able to recruit additional faculty.

Reason, without the Cabinet approval, the IITs would not be able to open a separate account to spend money on new

The faculty at IIT Delhi is wondering that how additional 120 students would be taught when about 200 posts are lying vacant. “Because of vacant posts we are already under so much pressure. It would lead to additional burden but we would cope with it for a year,” a senior professor at IIT Delhi 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.