NEW DELHI: Now that the seven engineering institutions — shortlisted by the S.K. Joshi Committee for upgradation to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) level — have submitted their vision documents, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry has set up a three-member technical committee to do a "reality check".

The Madras Institute of Development Studies Chairman and former IIT Kanpur professor, M. Anandakrishnan, heads the committee; the other two members being the former Roorkee University Vice-Chancellor, D.V. Singh, and the former IIT Kharagpur director, Amitabha Ghosh.

Since the vision documents submitted by the seven institutes mapping the upgradation process are broad statements, the committee has been asked to examine if the ground realities are such that the Government can bring them up to IIT level without too much of a drain on the exchequer. The Government is not planning to take on a recurring liability as it did when it decided to turn the Regional Engineering Colleges across the country into National Institutes of Technology earlier this decade.

The institutes being considered for an upgrade are the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University; the University College of Engineering combined with the University College of Technology, Osmania University; the Bengal Engineering (B.E.) College, Shibpur; the Jadavpur University's Engineering and Technology departments; Zakir Hussain College of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University; the Andhra University College of Engineering and Cochin University of Science and Technology.

While Zakir Hussain College and the Institute of Technology are part of Central universities, the B.E. College is a deemed university, the Cochin University of Science and Technology is a State university dedicated entirely to technical education. The remaining three are part of State universities. Since bringing them on a par with the IITs would mean all-India admissions, the committee will have to look at whether such a move would be workable.

The committee will visit the seven institutions to see for itself whether the ground realities match the claims made by them in the vision documents and the confidence articulated by the Joshi Committee. Already, a detailed questionnaire has been sent to the seven institutions asking them for basic details on student in-take and faculty strength, since the basic issue before the Ministry is how much of an effort and investment is needed to make them equivalent to the premier IITs.

Set up in 2003 by the National Democratic Alliance Government, the Joshi Committee had identified these seven institutions from across the country as those engineering institutions that have the potential of becoming IITs. Upgradation was considered a better fiscal option to opening new IITs by the last dispensation after paucity of funds forced it to put on hold former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's promise of opening five new IITs.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail