Filling IIT chief positions: Govt to interview all candidates

The HRD ministry will invite all the 37 applicants for the director positions in IIT Patna, Bhubaneswar and Ropar for interview.

Sources said a decision on the matter was taken with the approval of HRD Minister Smriti Irani, days after she tore up the list of 13 candidates finalised by the search-cum-selection committees to fill the three positions, and asked officials to begin the process afresh.

She asked the officials to invite all the candidates since some of the applicants who the committees had rejected in the preliminary stages could have been better examined.

Upset over the way the selection was handled, Irani also transferred additional secretary Amerjeet Sinha from the charge of the technical institutes to the ministry’s statistics department.

Sinha was on the firing line as he had recently approached Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth with a request to shift him from the HRD Ministry following his differences with Irani “over a range of issues which included selection of the IIT directors”, sources added.

“The Minister wants to appoint suitable candidates for the posts. All 37 candidates will be interviewed in front of her this time,” official sources told Deccan Herald, adding the interview will be held later this month.