HRD minister steps in to boost quality in IITs, IIMs

Institutes not focussing on academic excellence

Dissatisfied with the performance of newly set up IITs and IIMs, the government has gone tough on their directors, asking them to concentrate more on academic excellence and research in their institutes than on administrative issues.

This came at a recent meeting held by Human Resource Development Minister MM Pallam Raju with the heads of these premier technical and management institutes here.

During the meeting, the minister observed that the directors of these institutes were more concerned with their problems like difficulties in getting land from the state governments for setting up of permanent campus, utilisation of funds and purchase of equipments.

“The minister asked the directors to concentrate more on the academic matters like teaching, getting good faculty, industry linkage and enhancing research output,” sources in the HRD Ministry told Deccan Herald. The Centre established eight Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and six Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) during 11th Five Year Plan in order to create more quality professionals.

“However, they are yet to start yielding the desired results as they continue to focus more administrative issues than achieving academic excellence,” sources added.

Some of these institutes are yet to get adequate land for permanent campus while others, which have got land, are yet to finalise the master plan for the main campus. While the land has been handed over to IIT Mandi partially, the master plans are not ready for IIT-Jodhpur and IIT-Ropar.

Civil construction work of the departments and labs is to start at the sites meant for IITs in Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Jodhpur and Ropar. Among the new IIMs, IIM Ranchi is yet to get the land from the state government.

The directors feel that permanent campus would help their institutes enhance the academic and research activities. However, the minister, during the meeting, suggested that being academicians, they should focus more on academic issues and administrative issues like setting up of permanent campus should be handled by the registrar and other officials of their institutes, sources added.