Decade old IITs cost 2x more, but student intake was a third in first 6 yrs

Construction delays impact student intake; original plan was to spend Rs 6,080 cr in six years. But the cost catapulted to Rs 14,332 cr and project period expanded to 13 years

After the success stories of seven IITs set up in the 50 years after India became a republic, the announcement of eight new IITs happened in 2008, with Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Mandi, Patna and Ropar getting the allotment.

A recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India throws light on the financial, infrastructure and academic performance of the eight IITs in the decade after their announcement.

The report finds that in IIT Hyderabad, IIT Indore, IIT Jodhpur and IIT Patna, sufficient land was made available, but in IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Mandi and IIT Ropar, issues in allotment and transfer of land persisted even after a decade of their establishment.

More importantly, delays in construction had a direct impact on student intake, and while some IITs did complete the construction by 2019, insufficient intake happened with all the new IITs in the first six years of implementation.

The original plan was to spend Rs 6,080 crore in six years. But the cost catapulted to Rs 14,332 crore and the project period got expanded to 13 years, the CAG report shows.

After their setting up, when it came to running the new IITs according to plan, they fell short on admitting new students.

Despite the cost escalation that happened over time, only 6,224 students were admitted to the eight IITs in the 2008-2014 period, against the envisaged intake of 18,880 students. Which means, only a third (33 per cent) of the goal was achieved despite doubling the expenditure from taxpayer money.

With the intake itself stopping massively short of intention, the enrolment—which happens within the intake—was close to 98 per cent for undergraduate programmes in the 2014-2019 period.

But for postgrad programmes, more than 2,000 seats from the intake of 7,713 remained vacant, or the shortfall in enrolment in PG courses was 28 per cent in the eight new IITs put together. In PhD courses, it was as high as 80 per cent in IIT Bhubaneswar.

Further, teaching vacancies ranging from 5 to 36 per cent in faculty positions were observed in seven IITs, said the CAG report.

IITs in Hyderabad, Patna, Gandhinagar, Bhubaneswar and Indore have the biggest shortfalls in faculty, the report said.

As of December 2021, a massive 3,230 teacher posts and 4,182 non teaching posts are vacant in the IITs. Vacancies in Central Universities are more than that (about 20,000 including both), while those in IIMs are less than 1,000., according to the government's statement in Parliament. Further, 8 posts of chairman at IITs and 21 posts of chairman at NITs are vacant. Five posts of directors in IITs are too vacant.

In 2014 and 2015, six new IITs were announced, namely Tirupati, Palakkad, Bhilai, Jammu, Goa and Dharwad. The government mentioned in a statement to the Parliament that while academic sessions have commenced in all six, only three are having transit campuses. Rest are operating from temporary campuses. A sum of Rs 7,000 crore has been allocated for construction of permanent campuses, but apart from the knowledge that it has begun, no further details are publicly available.