Par panel favours separate councils for higher edu institutes

A Parliamentary panel today favoured setting up of separate councils for different higher educational institutes in the country for ensuring efficient administration and overall supervision.
The National Institute of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2013 seeks to establish a central body (the council) for institutes such as NITs, IISERs and IIESTs.
Observing that a single central body for all the three institutes is likely to be "unwidely", the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD suggested having separate council for each set of the institutions.
"It would be difficult for a single council to regulate as many as 36 institutions and the number of the institutions is likely to increase in near future...The committee therefore recommends to review clauses 7 and 8 and bring out amendments to have separate councils," it said.

The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha in the Budget Session to upgrade the Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur into Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur and upgrading it into an institution of national importance.
On the issue of reserving seats for the locals, the Panel recommended that "reservation for students of West Bengal to the extent possible may be retained in IIEST. Similarly, students belonging to SC/ST/OBC may also be protected as per the Government of India norms".

It felt that like in case of NITs where special relaxation was given by having an MoU between state governments and HRD Ministry entailing reservation of seats for local students, the same has to be extended to IIEST.

It said the upgradation of the institute should not in anyway turn out to be detrimental for the interest of the student community of the state.
The observations came against the backdrop of the Ministry stating there would be no provision of having 50 per cent reservation in IIEST for the locals even as it had earlier informed the state government that admission to the institute would be through AIEEE and 50 per cent of the students would be admitted from the state.