Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the commission, has proposed a policy enabling private companies to obtain land from state governments to set up IITs.
NEW DELHI: Unable to cope with the growing demand for technical education, the government may give the private sector a bigger role to play. The Planning Commission has suggested that private companies be allowed to build and run Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the commission, has proposed a policy enabling private companies to obtain land from state governments to set up IITs. These institutions, to be operated with a liberal fee structure, would be part of the Brand IIT. Currently, there are seven government-run IITs in the country.
Since this would give more students access to the IIT standard of education, Ahluwalia hopes the number of high-quality engineers in India will increase substantially at no cost to the government. The HRD ministry has already expressed its inability to establish new IITs due to financial constraints.
IIT Delhi has welcomed the move. “It’s great news,” said Colonel Rajender Singh, registrar and official pokesman. “There is a marginal difference in the marks of the top 5,000 students who qualify and the next 5,000 or so who don’t. The new IITs would accommodate more students.”
But Singh said the government should keep strict regulatory control to ensure that the quality of education in the private IITs is on a par with that in existing IITs. He suggested that even the fees should be regulated.
This policy initiative emerged during the deliberations related to the 11th Five Year Plan. The commission has sent the plan to the PM and the HRD ministry. It is also being discussed in the Knowledge Commission.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, member-convener of the Knowledge Commission, said, "A number of options are being discussed: Will the private IITs be allowed to have their own syllabi with a global benchmark? Will they be allowed to have international collaboration? Or, will they be like the current IITs, sharing the same curriculum? Will they be regulated by government but financed and run by private parties?"
Mehta said there is no opposition to the plan in principle. "Already, 70 per cent of engineering seats are filled by private institutes," he said.
It is estimated that every 10 years there is a 15 per cent rise in the number of students passing out of senior secondary schools. The HRD ministry expects this to double in the next decade.
According to the India Science Report, over 40 per cent of science students want to pursue engineering. On an average, nearly five lakh students vie for the 5,000 seats in the seven IITs through the Joint Entrance Examination.
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