New IITs get regular directors

Functioning under temporary arrangement for over a year, the newly-created six IITs have now got their regular directors. Prof U B Desai, Prof M K Surappa, Prof Sudhir Kumar Jain, Prof Prem Kumar Kalra, Prof Madhusudan Chakroborty and Prof Anil Bhowmick will head the IITs at Hyderabad, Ropar, Gandhinagar, Rajasthan, Bhubaneswar and Patna respectively.    

"The Union Cabinet has given its go ahead for the appointment of the directors who were selected by the search committee. We have issued appointment letters to the new directors last week," a senior HRD Ministry official told PTI.    

The search committee of Ministry of HRD had earlier selected these academics to head the new IITs. The IIT Council, the highest decision making body of the elite institutes, had approved the appointment of directors in January this year. However, they could not be appointed pending Cabinet's approval.    

The government started six new IITs last year. Since they did not have campuses of their own, they were started on mentoring basis, an arrangement under which the old IITs had to accommodate the students of the new institutes. The directors of the old IITs were made acting directors of the new ones.

The government has decided that the new IITs, except IIT Rajasthan, will start functioning from their own campuses from this session. The appointment of new directors will help the institutes function on their own, the official said.    

The government is also starting two new IITs, one in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and one in Indore in Madhya Pradesh, from this year. The government is expected to appoint new directors at these two institutes soon.    

HRD Ministry had held a meeting with directors of seven IITs last month to discuss on the issue of IITs being to shifted to their own campus.Accordingly, IIT Bhubaneswar and IIT Punjab, which are functioning at their mentoring IITs in Kharagpur and Delhi at present, will be shifted to their own campuses from the coming academic session.    

Three others -- IIT Hyderabad, IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Patna -- are already running from temporary campuses. However, IIT Kanpur will have to continue to mentor IIT Rajasthan as the state government is yet to identify a site for setting up of the institute.    

"We have sent a reminder to Rajasthan government to suggest a site for setting up of the new IIT. We are waiting for their response. Since there is no arrangement, IIT Kanpur will continue to mentor IIT Rajasthan," the official said.