New HRD plan to establish IIT Research hubs

The HRD ministry has set up a committee in order to draw a route map for the implementation of IIT reforms. Few months back, IIT reforms have been suggested by Anil Kakodkar. He will be the head of this new committee and this committee will also include Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras, chairperson of standing committee of IITs; Devang Khakhar, director of IIT, Bombay; R K Shevgaonkar, director of IIT-Delhi and one more IIT director to be co-opted later.

As per a senior official, the plan proposed by Kakodkar committee is comprehensive in nature and covers a wide range of issues. Some of the recommendations require legislative intervention for which the Institutes of Technology Act would have to be amended. Various academic issues can be dealt collectively by the IITs and the implementation committee will act as an interface between the ministry and IITs.

Some of the minor recommendations will be implemented in next 6 months. Else, various issues like change in the administrative and fee structure, IITs' signing annual memorandum of understanding with HRD ministry and financial autonomy would require intervention from government. The council of IIT has already accepted the report proposed by Kakodkar committee.

Recommendations made by the committee:

• IITs should be rebranded as primary research institutes
• IITs should produce up to 10,000 PhD graduates by 2020-25
• Setting up of research parks at each IITs
• Government should give an outlay of Rs 1.5 lakh per student to the old IITs, and an endowment grant of Rs 50 crore for each new IIT
• The ministry should pay the full operating cost of education along with a scholarship for all post-graduate - PhD, MS and MTech - and undergraduate students from reserved category and economically weaker sections.

Source: Richha Bhatnagar (Shiksha Team)