Parliament nods to Bill allowing IIIT Raichur to award diplomas, degrees

Parliament on Tuesday passed a bill to grant statutory status to Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) at Raichur and four such institutions, set up under public-private partnership.

Besides Raichur, IIIT has been set up under public-private partnership at Surat, Bhopal, Bhagalpur and Agartala.

The Indian Institutes of Information Technology Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020, which was passed by Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, grant these institutions statutory rights to award diplomas, degrees and PhDs. The Lok Sabha had passed the Bill on Sunday.

These five IIITs along with 15 other IIITs, which are also built on public-private partnership (PPP) mode will now be able to use the nomenclature of Bachelor of Technology (BTech) or Master of Technology (MTech) or PhD degree.

The bill amends the Indian Institutes of Information Technology Act, 2014 and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public-Private Partnership) Act, 2017.

Currently, these institutes are registered as Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and do not have the power to grant degrees or diplomas.

Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said that there were 25 IIITs in the country out of which five were purely run by the central government, and 15 operate under public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

“We have brought the proposal before this House to bring five new operational institutes which are located and have started operations in Surat (Gujarat), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Agartala (Tripura) and Raichur (Karnataka) to bring under this act,” Nishank said.

It will also enable the institutes to attract enough students required to develop a strong research base in the country in the field of information technology.