LS passes Bill allowing IIITs to award degrees

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 19

Eleven months after the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Amethi, was wound up and its students shifted to the main IIIT campus at Allahabad, the government today said the Amethi institute was virtually running without faculty for nine years.

“Between 2005 and 2014, no faculty was appointed at IIIT Amethi. There was just one faculty. Every day one teacher from IIIT Allahabad would travel to the Amethi off campus and come back. Substandard education became a norm. Students protested and asked to be shifted to Allahabad IIIT. That was why Amethi IIIT was shifted to Ambedkar University, Lucknow,” HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar told the Lok Sabha today replying to a debate on the IIIT Private-Public Partnership Bill 2017 which the House later passed.

The Bill, in a first, allows private investment (sharing ratio will be 50 per cent central financing, 35 per cent state and 15 per cent private) in a central higher education institution. It grants statutory status to 15 existing IIITs which can now confer B Tech, M Tech and PhD degrees to students. The first UG batch passes out this year.

Javadekar used the occasion today to clarify Congress’ charges that the BJP government closed down Rajiv Gandhi IIIT, Amethi, out of vengeance for the Gandhis. Amethi is Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s LS segment.

Javadekar said TCS and Nasscom had projected 70 lakh jobs in the Information Techonology sector in five years, which makes the IIIT Bill important as it seeks to create IT manpower.