• Cabinet okays 8 new IITs •

Hyderabad Edition, 18th July 2008

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved setting up of eight Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and conversion of IT-BHU into IIT at a cost of Rs 6,080 crore, finance minister P Chidambaram said after the meeting.

The Cabinet also approved the PM’s 15-point programme for the welfare of minorities and funding of six Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Project Operational Flights — F11 to F16.

The eight IITs are likely to come up during the current academic session in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. With the creation of new IITs, high quality technical education will become accessible to bright students as hardly two percent of about three lakh students who appear in the Joint Entrance Examination gets admissions in them, Chidambaram said.

The Cabinet also approved creation of 30 faculty posts per year in the first three years of establishment of each of the new IITs, besides approving the posts of a director and registrar. A decision was also taken to raise the grade of all existing IIT directors to Rs 26,000 (fixed) from Rs 25,000 now.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants the pace of implementation of various welfare measures for uplift ment of minorities to be accelerated. He made the observation while reviewing the progress of implementation of the PM’s new 15-point programme for the welfare of minorities at a meeting of the Cabinet, Chidambaram said.