Karnataka to develop 10 engineering colleges as ‘Institutes of Eminence’

The state government has dropped the previous BJP government’s plan to develop seven government engineering colleges as Karnataka Institute of Technologies (KIT), on the lines of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). It has decided to upgrade 10 government engineering colleges as the ‘Institute of Eminence.’

For this purpose, the Higher Education department has decided to borrow a soft loan from the World Bank. Confirming this to DH, Minister for Higher Education Dr M C Sudhakar said that the proposal has been submitted to the Finance department for the concurrence to take a loan from the World Bank.

“It was just an announcement made by the previous government to develop colleges into an IIT model, but funds were not released or earmarked for the purpose. We have dropped that plan and decided to upgrade 10 government engineering colleges as Institutes of Eminence,” said Sudhakar.

“It is not that we have discontinued the project by the previous government. Actually the twinning programme for polytechnic students was their project and we have continued it,” the minister said.

‘Not an easy task’

As explained by the minister, it is not easy to develop colleges as IIT model. “The curriculum, examination system, governance and everything is different in the IITs. Our aim is to improve the quality by providing importance to faculty and infrastructure,” he said.

“We will not stress only on improving the infrastructure of our engineering colleges. The loan amount will be distributed region-wise for the colleges,” he added.

The idea of the department is to get Rs 1,740 crore soft loan from the World Bank for the period of 20 years and allocate Rs 30 crore per government engineering college (total 10 selected), Rs 20 crore per degree college in 15 districts and upgrade them as model colleges and also to establish polytechnics in every district utilising the funds.

Sudhakar said the department is trying to bring in some changes in the engineering curriculum also. The BJP government had announced to upgrade seven government engineering colleges to KITs on the lines of IITs. It had constituted a task force headed by founder director of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru, Prof S Sadagopan.

As per the announcement, the task force was supposed to select two departments in seven engineering colleges, study the needs and submit reports on upgrading them as KITs.