Kakodkar committeereport 05132011

Taking IITs to Excellence
and Greater Relevance
Report of Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee

April, 2011

Taking IITs to Excellence
and Greater Relevance

Report of Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee
Appointed By MHRD
to Recommend Autonomy Measures to
Facilitate IITs Scaling Greater Heights

Anil Kakodkar
T. V. Mohandas Pai
Hari Bhartia
Ashok Jhunjhunwala
K. Mohandas
Ashok Thakur
M. Anandakrishnan
Gautam Barua
T. A. Gonsalves
K. Sudhakar
S. Ramesh Babu

April, 2011

Forn used: Minion Pro
Printed at: IITB Printing Press
Designed by : Parul Bhattu and G.G.Ray, IDC., IITB

On letter head

Subject: Report of the Committee appointed by MHRD
to recommend autonomy measures
to facilitate IITs scaling greater heights.

Dear Shri Sibal,

MHRD vide F.NO.19-3/2009-TS1 dated 3rd February, 2010 had constituted a
committee for suggesting a roadmap for autonomy and future of IITs as world class
institutions for research and higher learning.

The Committee has looked into various issues in the context of the terms of reference
given to the committee, consulted a broad range of stake holders specially the Directors
of IITs and representative faculty and had the benefit of a discussion in the IIT Council.
The committee is convinced that, given the demographic advantage that we have, the
need to create conditions that can bridge the aspiration gap for our youth and the
importance of knowledge and innovation in our inclusive economic growth; there is a
pressing need to create and expand our education-research-technology-innovation-
entrepreneurship eco-system in the country. IITs are presently at the right stage to
create and nurture such an environment on a significant scale. IITs can also facilitate
extension of such environment to other domains in the country at an appropriate stage.
This requires a strategy to take IITs to greater level of excellence and relevance. The
Committee has approached its mandate from this perspective.

Managing such a transition would naturally require complete autonomy so that IITs can
adopt innovative and flexible management approaches to quickly move forward on a
promising new idea in a selective manner. It is also clear that the IITs as research
institutions would need to scale up with a comprehensive research infrastructure to
address various dimensions of research and technology needs of the country. While
expansion needs would naturally have to be met by the Government, it is important that
eventually IITs become largely self sustaining as far as their operational needs are
concerned. It is expected that once the autonomous management structure is in place,
ability of IITs to bring in resources from non- Governmental sources will be considerably
enhanced.

The Committee has been conscious about the need to ensure access to all deserving
bright young people to this nation building process. The Committee has therefore
proposed that only those who have parental income beyond a threshold determined by
Govt. of India (4.5 lakhs at present) would need to pay the operational cost of under
graduate education. For the rest it is proposed that their expenses at IIT be covered by
the Government on a per student basis. It is also proposed that a hassle free bank loan

facility not involving any collateral should be made a part of admission process for all
those who may be in the need.

Details are given in the report enclosed herewith. The Committee would like to suggest
that the recommendations of the Committee may be treated as a whole. In case of their
acceptance, we also suggest that an empowered group be set up for oversight and
smooth management of transition to new paradigm including actions at several levels in
the Ministry, IIT Council as well as at individual IITs.

We thank you for the opportunity given to us in this important task.

With warm regards,

Yours sincerely,

Anil Kakodkar

T V Mohandas Pai

Hari Bhartia

Ashok Jhunjhunwala

K Mohandas

Ashok Thakur

Shri Kapil Sibal
Hon. Minister,
Ministry of Human Resource development,
Government of India.

Executive Summary

A committee was constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) vide its

order F.NO.19-3/2009-TS 1 of 3 February 2010 to suggest a roadmap for the autonomy and

future of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) as world-class institutions for research and

higher learning. The terms of reference of the Committee are given in the order, a copy of which

is included in the report at Appendix I. The committee held several meetings, including

discussions with the directors of IITs and with a section of the faculty members of IITs at

Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Kanpur and Delhi. A stakeholder survey was organized which

provided valuable inputs. The committee also visited China on a study tour to five Universities

there.

A country of India’s size, on a rapid economic growth path, would require in today’s

context a significant emphasis on large-scale research at the highest levels of excellence. This is

necessary to push the frontiers of knowledge and create new cutting edge technologies and

thereby sustain India’s progress as a leading country in today’s competitive global environment.

Development of such technologies should be linked to our industry to make them global leaders

and to address the needs of markets both in India and the rest of the world. We should be in the

forefront to meet the growing human needs with minimum use of earth resources in a manner

that keeps the environment around us protected. We need to nurture a large science and

technology (S&T) based innovation ecosystem that creates solutions for India’s inclusive

development and economic growth. The creation of a large pool of researchers (with PhD)

commensurate with the size of our population and economy as well as our aspirations, is a key

necessity for the realization of these objectives.

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The IITs are known to be among the best teaching institutions in the field of engineering,

which have made a global mark with their high quality undergraduate (UG) education. B. Tech

graduates from the IITs have made a very significant impact in various domains. M. Tech degree

holders from IITs play a leadership role in Indian industry and R&D organizations. They have

also provided some PhDs to educational Institutions (in addition to industry). IITs have created

all the relevant ingredients and the best platforms to lead the Innovation and Technology

Development movement in the nation.

The IITs are now on a growth path to cope with the expansion mandate recommended by

the Oversight Committee (OSC). This rather rapid rate of expansion has caused considerable

strain on the system. At the same time, it is true that till recently, the IITs had not grown at a

pace commensurate with the expansion of engineering education in the country. Currently,

around 500,000 engineering graduates come out of our engineering colleges. This number would

cross one million in three to four years from now. There is however a serious question about

their quality. Industry finds a large number of these graduates unemployable needing further

training. In the 1970s and early 1980s, close to 10% of engineering graduates came from the IITs;

this has dropped to below 0.5% today. The decreasing fraction of IIT graduates and with a

significant fraction amongst them moving away from engineering and technology, has led to

decreasing benefit of IIT graduates to national development in proportionate terms.

In terms of research, the IITs are continuously enhancing their research activities as

evidenced by the increasing number of PhDs coming out of the IIT system. In fact, most PhDs in

engineering in the country are now coming from the IITs. Even so, the number of PhDs that

come out annually from the IITs is very small (about 1000 per year) in comparison to the size of

our country, size of our economy and number of youth in the country. Further, only about 1% of

IIT B.Techs do PhD at the IITs. Recognizing that we are fast moving into an era dominated by a

knowledge-driven economy and would have to face higher levels of competition as the Indian

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economy becomes one of the largest in the world, emphasis on technology and innovation linked

to advanced research is becoming increasingly important. The IITs, being the largest system for

high-level engineering R&D and human resource development in an ambience of high-level

research, have thus to take on the challenge of creating an advanced research-based innovation

ecosystem that, on a national scale, is large enough to make a significant positive difference. For

this purpose, while the scale of high-level research at the IITs needs to be considerably enhanced

and broad based with the involvement of industry and national technology related programmes,

the IITs should also contribute in a significant way to the research and development capability

and culture in the country at large (by creating a large pool of PhD graduates). If one looks

around the world, most of the best technology institutions in the world have 15,000+ students as

opposed to 6000+ currently at each of the established IITs. USA and China produce around

8000–9000 PhDs in engineering and technology annually while in India the corresponding

number presently is around 1000. With this background, and considering the large gap that we

have to bridge in realizing our development aspirations, we need a large-scale increase in the

number of PhDs coming out from the IITs. The Committee has therefore suggested that each IIT

should progressively grow to have around 1200 faculty (from around 500 today) and closer to

12,000 students with maximum growth coming from an enhanced number of PhD students.

While the established IITs could aim at reaching this scale up in about 10 years from now, the

newer IITs could take longer. Further, the Committee has suggested setting up of 5 more IITs

over this period of time. Thus, the Committee has recommended the number of IIT PhD

graduates per year to be scaled up to 10,000, while continuously enhancing quality.

The Committee has suggested the retention of time-tested parameters like a certain faculty

: student ratio (1:10) and PG : UG ratio (1:1 or higher). A comparison with the annual PhD

output per faculty in the IITs vis-à-vis the situation in some of the high-ranking universities

would suggest a scope for improvement here. The Committee has suggested a minimum of 0.6

PhDs per faculty annually, eventually reaching 1 PhD per faculty. On this basis, the Committee
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has suggested that we should aim at scaling the IIT system to 16,000 faculty and 160,000 total

student strength (with 40,000 at the PhD level, 40,000 at the Masters level and 80,000 UG

students) by around the year 2020. Each year, then, the IIT system will admit 10,000 PhDs.

The Committee has also recommended an Executive M.Tech programme for about 10,000

working professionals from industry through live video classes to enhance the knowledge base in

our industries.

Finding faculty in adequate numbers to meet the needs of OSC expansion as well as new

IITs has in itself been a major challenge. Coping with faculty needs for scaling up the PhD

programme to the above-mentioned level would thus have to primarily depend on the PhD

programme at the IITs itself.

Feeders to such a large PhD programme in the form of bright engineering graduates have

to be of a size commensurate with the requirements. While students with a Masters degree and,

to some extent B.Tech students, of IITs would constitute an important channel (all efforts must

be made to attract them into the IIT PG stream), one would need to tap other channels to get

quality students in adequate numbers. The Committee has therefore suggested engagement of

IITs with other good quality engineering and science education institutions, particularly those of

the Central government like NITs, IIITs and IISERs, with a view to enlarge the pool for selection

of quality students and also attract their faculty into the PhD programme. The Committee has

also suggested special efforts be made to identify and pick up bright 3rd year students of IITs,

NITs and such other such public or private institutions and to initiate them into the PhD

programme. Further, the Committee has suggested an augmented intake of PhD students from

industry and the engineering education system in the country. IITs being at the top of

engineering education in the country should act as an inspiration to raise the level of engineering

education in other public and private institutions. This would result in enrichment of these

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institutions, which is long overdue. Of course, for all this to happen, the IITs would have to

aggressively pursue candidates from these different streams to join their PhD programme.

To support such a large number of PhD students (40,000 at a time) with challenging and

meaningful research problems would require comprehensive augmentation of research facilities

and infrastructure. The Committee has proposed significant augmentation/addition in the

following four domains. This would be over and above the current mode of support through

various research funding agencies for individual proposals submitted to them by the faculty.

1. Identify 3–4 areas of recognized strength involving a reasonable faculty strength at each IIT

and support them massively to become the world’s best. Selection of such areas should be

done on the basis of demonstrated high-level capability.

2. Take up large coordinated research projects involving a number of groups from different

disciplines (from same or different IITs) to address important national challenges/other

grand challenges with specific pre-defined deliverables.

3. Establish research parks with significant industry presence at each IIT on the lines of a

research park established at IIT Madras, to enable industry–academia collaborations and

build a Research and Innovation ecosystem.

4. Establish special laboratories of government ministries/their Public Sector Undertakings

(PSUs) at IITs to strengthen indigenous capability in key areas of national importance. It is

expected that such augmentation of research infrastructure in the IITs would create useful

linkages between them and the external world, thus making research at IIT more

meaningful. More importantly, this would lead to a broad-based innovation ecosystem of

which IIT students and faculty will be an integral part.

World-class institutions are characterized by the existence of a large high quality talent

pool (faculty, students and visiting researchers), vibrant academic and research linkages with

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external better quality institutions, availability of liberal resources and a flexible and conducive

governance system that can recognize and selectively support credible new ideas in a hassle-free

manner. Funding and autonomy of the IITs are thus key areas that need serious attention.

Towards enhancing autonomy that would provide the IITs the necessary flexibility to

support and deal with a new idea or take a new initiative and lead them towards world-class

excellence, it is proposed that each Institute be fully governed by its Board of Governors (BoG),

including aspects like financial planning and expenditure rules, faculty remuneration, fees and

number of faculty and staff, within the overall policy guidelines of the IIT Council in terms of

expectations from IITs as world-class institutions, affirmative actions, technology directions and

human resource development. The composition of the Board would enable representation of all

stakeholders. The Committee has suggested that the Board should have one representative each

from MHRD and the state governments. Other members could be selected from panels (duly

approved by the IIT Council) prepared by S&T academies and Industry associations; also the

alumni and faculty would also be represented. The Board will select the Chairperson following a

due process and appoint him/her after approval by the Council. A search committee appointed

by the Board would select the Director for approval and appointment by the Board. Selection of

the next set of members to replace those retiring, would be done by a nomination committee of

the Board and approved by the Board. Each institute would subject itself to a comprehensive

institution review by an internationally eminent group once every 5 years. Such reviews which

will be overseen by the IIT Council, will have focus on quality, programmes, their direction and

size, working of the institutions and suggestions for change, including new initiatives. These

review reports shall be made public. Further, there will be an annual MoU between the

Government and each IIT, with the Council’s oversight and guidance. Such MoUs would include

commitments, responsibilities and deliverables on both sides (Government and IIT). The Visitor

would retain emergency powers as at present.

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Sustaining a large talent pool that acts as a magnet to attract bright students and

researchers is one of the key features of a world-class institution. Attracting the best faculty to the

IITs is thus of crucial importance. This would require a strong academic, research and

innovation culture and a conducive and transparent organization that nurtures excellence. It has

to be driven by the Director and faculty and there should be additional attractions like significant

start-up funds that would enable researchers get on with their research from day one. The BoG

should have the flexibility to decide on faculty remuneration. It is proposed that there should be a

system of faculty assessment in terms of several parameters like teaching, research, technology

development and industrial consultancy, policy research and service with differentiated faculty

remuneration based on performance-based assessment. At the same time, a tenure system for

faculty needs to be examined. The Committee has also suggested the need to enable and

encourage some mid-career faculty from the established IITs to shift to newer IITs and for

overseas faculty to join IIT.

Institutions like IITs that are devoted to growth in the knowledge, technology and

innovation domains and related human capital development, should be seen as asset builders for

the nation in the modern knowledge-driven economy. The Committee has thus suggested that

IITs be made independent of non-plan (operational) support from the Government for their

operational expenditure while at the same time seeking greater plan (capital) support to enhance

research in a comprehensive manner, as outlined above. The objective of realizing autonomy

would be facilitated by de-linking IIT finances with non-plan support of the Government. The

enhanced plan support to IITs would have three components: (i) Student support at postgraduate

and research level on a per student basis through scholarships, (ii) research support aimed at

pushing the frontiers of knowledge and innovation and (iii) massive augmentation of

infrastructure to support larger numbers of students.

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It is proposed that the fee charged by the IITs should cover the full operational cost of

education, which works out to be roughly 30% of the total current cost of education. A hassle-

free bank loan scheme specific to IIT students has been proposed. No collateral would be

required. This would enable access to all eligible and deserving students. Further, it has been

proposed that MHRD should fully provide for fees and living expenses as per currently prevalent

norms at IITs for all research students (PG) as well as UG students from weaker sections. In

addition, all students whose parental income is less than Rs 4.5 lakh per annum (to be revised

from time to time), should be paid scholarships covering 100% fees, and a monthly stipend.

Incentives in the form of deferment of loans for students entering postgraduate education and

research and proportionate repayment of loan for students joining as faculty and researchers into

programmes at IITs and other areas identified by the Government, have been proposed.

The Committee has also recommended that all government ministries should provide a

minimum of 20% overheads without ceiling on the R&D projects sanctioned to IITs. This is

necessary to avoid strain on institute resources as they undertake enlarged R&D activities. Most

US universities charge overheads to the tune of 50%. Industrial consultancy and royalty, alumni

and industrial grants/donations and continuing education programmes, including executive

M.Tech programmes, would be some other modes for enhancing IIT finances. It is expected that

IIT resources through non-governmental sources would further improve in a significant way

once the IITs acquire financial autonomy.

With this background, the Committee has suggested that the tuition fees should be

between Rs 2–2.5 lakh per year per student. This would be reasonable considering the high

demand for IIT graduates and the salary that an IIT B.Tech is expected to get. There is a legacy

commitment in the form of retirement benefits under the old pension scheme (to the tune of

around Rs 221 crore for all IITs in 2010). This should be continued to be paid by the

Government till the end of the scheme.

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To support research at IITs, MHRD should provide plan funds at Rs 1.5 lakh per student

annually. The newer IITs do not have any significant endowment funds at present. Hence, Rs 50

crore as seed endowment over the next 5 years has been proposed for each new IIT.

On the capital investment front, the Government should support an Expansion Budget at

Rs 20 lakh per additional student. In addition, a sum of Rs 5 lakh per student would be required

in the established IITs for regeneration of ageing infrastructure. It is also assessed that for OSC-

related expansion costs, Rs 15 lakh per student should be provided as Rs 10 lakh per student

provided presently has been found to be inadequate.

The IITs must nurture an ambience of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to make India a

world leader in the present-day knowledge economy. In order to achieve this, we should have

substantially enhanced Industrial collaboration with a focus on technology development in the

Indian context. A strong industry–academia relationship is of key importance. Initially, there

needs to be significant give and take on both sides. But this will make a significant difference to

teaching and research at the IITs and will train IIT graduates to take India to a leadership

position. One should also encourage industry R&D personnel to become adjunct faculty and

enable large numbers of industry persons to do PhD. Research Parks create the right ecosystem

to bring students, faculty and industry R&D personnel together. It is proposed that Rs 200 crore

be provided for setting up a Research Park on the lines of the IIT Madras Research Park at each

IIT. The IITs need to learn that success in entrepreneurship often comes only after multiple

failures and substantial benefits accrue only if R&D is pursued over long periods. We need to

create a value system that takes these factors into account. IITs have to make special efforts to

learn to evaluate faculty focusing on product development.

Outsourcing of support activities to the maximum extent possible has been strongly

recommended. IITs should strive to minimize the number of regular employees for non-

technical support functions. All decisions with regard to staff, including numbers and

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remuneration, should be decided by the BoG. Most scientific staff is proposed to be on project

mode, with flexibility of salaries for temporary staff. The technical staff could be in-sourced

wherever possible. Here, the use of PhD students as teaching assistants would be of help. On the

administration side, maximum possible computerization of functions has been recommended to

reduce the requirement of administrative staff. Hiring of some professional mid-career staff

could be considered to make the administration more efficient. They should be observed for their

performance for a few years before they are regularized.

Scaling up engineering education with quality would ensure availability of quality human

resource for meeting India’s needs. It will also be an excellent feeder pool to critical areas as well

as into the PhD programmes. Seventy Centrally funded institutions (including IITs) should

therefore graduate 100,000 high quality engineers every year. While the share of 20 IITs could be

20,000 B.Techs, the 50 other institutions should plan to graduate 80,000 graduates every year in

about 10 years from now. Hopefully, state governments and private institutions could create

additionally at least 200,000 quality seats. This will create a reasonable sized science and

engineering pool for India’s future.

As a part of IITs’ engagement in this process, each of the 50 Centrally funded science and

engineering institutions (like NITs, IIITs, IISER, NISER) could select 5 bright young (aged

around 35 years) faculty members from the IIT system and invite them to be a member of their

BoG and Senate. They could be tasked to build a relationship with the concerned IIT department

and young faculty at the Institute to enable and enhance research collaboration (Rs 50 lakh to be

identified for each faculty for this purpose) between the institute and the IITs. They would

encourage B.Techs to join PhD programmes at the IITs and, if necessary, get faculty to do PhDs

at the IITs. Similarly, they could get some IIT PhDs to join the institute as faculty. It is expected

that each faculty spends at least 15 days a year at the institute. One of the consequences of this

strategy would also be that young IIT faculty would be trained to be future leaders. In a similar

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manner, 3 young persons from industry could be identified by each NIT. They could be similarly

invited to the Board and be tasked with similar goals.

Amendments to the IIT Act would be necessary to give effect to the above-mentioned

recommendations.

Details are given in the report. We strongly suggest that the recommendations of the

Committee should be treated as a whole to realize the intended objective. It is also recommended

that an empowered Implementation committee should be tasked for implementation of these

recommendations and to facilitate transition to the new framework for IITs.

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Contents

PREAMBLE .................................................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................7

1.1 Current State of Higher Education in India ..................................................................................................... 7
1.2 Universities System and Technical Education ................................................................................................. 9
1.3 Centrally Funded Institutions ......................................................................................................................... 12
1.4 50 + Years of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) ..................................................................................... 13
1.5 The Beginnings ................................................................................................................................................. 13
1.6 Review of IITs ................................................................................................................................................... 14
1.7 IITs – Their Achievements, Aspirations, Concerns ....................................................................................... 15
1.8 HRD Minister’s Brainstorming Session with Chairmen, BoG and Directors of IITs .................................. 18
1.9 Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee – Formation and Terms of Reference ......................................................... 20
1.10 Stakeholders’ Voice........................................................................................................................................... 20
1.11 China Visit ........................................................................................................................................................ 26
1.12 Structure of the Report ..................................................................................................................................... 28

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................................... 28

CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................................................................. 31

CURRENT STATE OF IITS ................................................................................................................................... 33

2.1 National Needs in Engineering Education ............................................................................................................ 33
2.2 IITs and National Scene in Engineering Education ............................................................................................. 34
2.3 IITs and Global Scene in Engineering Education................................................................................................. 38

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................................... 44

CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................................................................. 45

IITS AS RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS ................................................................................................................. 47

3.1 Scaling at IITs ........................................................................................................................................................ 48

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3.1.1 Research Scholars .................................................................................................................................................. 48
3.1.2 Faculty .................................................................................................................................................................... 50
3.2 Where will the PhD students come from? ....................................................................................................... 54
3.2.1 Undergraduate Students and Student–Teacher Ratio..................................................................................... 55
3.3 Diversity on Campus ........................................................................................................................................ 57
3.4 Research Infrastructure .................................................................................................................................... 58
3.5 Technology Leadership ..................................................................................................................................... 58
3.6 Industry Interaction .......................................................................................................................................... 60
3.7 Interaction With Government Agencies .......................................................................................................... 62
3.8 Executive M.Tech Programme for Industry..................................................................................................... 64
3.9 International/Foreign Students and Faculty ................................................................................................... 67

CHAPTER 4 ............................................................................................................................................................. 69

GOVERNANCE, AUTONOMY AND FINANCES .......................................................................................... 71

4.1 Context .............................................................................................................................................................. 71
4.2 Financial Autonomy ........................................................................................................................................ 73
4.3 Key Recommendations on Fee and Scholarship ............................................................................................. 76
4.4 Key recommendation on Pension Liabilities .................................................................................................. 80
4.5 Key Recommendations on Research and Consultancy .................................................................................. 81
4.6 Key Recommendations on Grants for Infrastructure..................................................................................... 82
4.7 Income/Expenditure Statement of Established IITs for Fiscal 2009 and 2010 ............................................ 86
4.8 Introduction of Special Loan Schemes ............................................................................................................ 93
4.9 Administrative Autonomy ............................................................................................................................... 94
4.10 Impact of Committee Recommendations on Government Funding Pattern for IITs ................................ 101
4.10.1 Financial Implications of Recommendations ................................................................................................ 106

CHAPTER 5 ........................................................................................................................................................... 111

FACULTY AT IITS ............................................................................................................................................... 113

5.1 Scaling of Faculty at IITs ............................................................................................................................... 114
5.2 Part-time and Adjunct Faculty from Industry ............................................................................................. 117
5.3 Faculty Pay-scales and Remuneration.......................................................................................................... 118
5.4 Faculty Appraisal ........................................................................................................................................... 121

CHAPTER 6 ........................................................................................................................................................... 129

STAFF AT IITS ...................................................................................................................................................... 131

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6.1 Support Staff ................................................................................................................................................... 132
6.2 Scientific Staff ................................................................................................................................................. 133
6.3 Technical Staff ................................................................................................................................................ 134
6.4 Administrative Staff ....................................................................................................................................... 135
6.5 Project Staff ..................................................................................................................................................... 136
6.6 Autonomy and Role of Staff ........................................................................................................................... 137

CHAPTER 7 ........................................................................................................................................................... 139

INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP ................................................................................................ 141

7.1 The Need ......................................................................................................................................................... 141
7.2 Benefits ............................................................................................................................................................ 141
7.3 Recipe .............................................................................................................................................................. 143
7.4 Academic Structure ........................................................................................................................................ 145
7.5 Summary......................................................................................................................................................... 147

CHAPTER 8 ........................................................................................................................................................... 149

SCALING ENGINEERING EDUCATION WITH QUALITY IN INDIA ................................................... 151

CHAPTER 9 ........................................................................................................................................................... 157

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................. 159

APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................................................ 171

APPENDIX-I : DR ANIL KAKODKAR COMMITTEE, ITS CONSTITUTION AND FUNCTIONING 173

APPENDIX II : DETAILS OF ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE, ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ...................... 181

APPENDIX III : QS WORLD RANKINGS ....................................................................................................... 195

APPENDIX IV : NOTE ON EXECUTIVE M. TECH PROGRAMME.......................................................... 197

APPENDIX V : SUGGESTED LOAN SCHEME FOR IIT STUDENTS FROM SBI ................................... 205

APPENDIX VI : EDUCATIONAL LOAN SCHEME BY INDIAN BANKS’ ASSOCIATION .................. 209

APPENDIX VII: HOW TO SET UP A NEW IIT ............................................................................................. 213

APPENDIX VIII : AMENDMENTS TO THE INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY ACT, 1961 (ACT) ... 215

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 252
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List of Figures
Figure 1.1 : AICTE Approved Institutions and Their Intake ............................................................ 12

Figure 2.1 : Challenges in Establishing World-class Universities ..................................................... 42

Figure 3.1 : Growth in PhD Programme .............................................................................................. 52

Figure 3.2 : Growth of Faculty at IITs ................................................................................................... 52

List of Tables
Table 2.1 : Intake into 15 iits ................................................................................................................. 35

Table 2.2 : 15 iits - Degrees awarded, Publications and Funding ...................................................... 36

Table 2.3 : QS Ranking of Some Indian Institutions of Engineering Education ............................. 38

Table 2.4 : Influence of Medical School on QS Ranking ................................................................... 39

Table 2.5 : India, China and USA: A Comparison ............................................................................. 41

Table 3.1 : Aggressive growth of faculty at iits ........................................................................................... 51

Table 4.1 : Operating revenues of seven established iits .......................................................................... 74

Table 4.2 : Proposed scholarship scheme ..................................................................................................... 78

Table 4.3 : Masters and phd assistantship payout...................................................................................... 80

Table 4.4 : Government pension for seven established iits ..................................................................... 81

Table 4.5 : Income/expenditure of established iits for fy 2009 and fy 2010 ....................................... 87

Table 4.6 : Student intake modelling for the iit system ............................................................................ 89

Table 4.7 : Student intake modelling for the seven established iits ...................................................... 90

Table 4.8 : Income/expenditure of established iits for fy 2012 onwards ............................................. 91

Table 4.9 : Estimated fee collection from students and government grants ..................................... .92

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Table 4.10 : Government grants under new proposal ............................................................................ 103

Table 4.11: Government grants, with rejuvenation budget, new iits’ research grants and for
research parks ...................................................................................................................................................... 105

Table 4.12: Government grants, without rejuvenation budget, new iit’s research grants and
research parks ...................................................................................................................................................... 105

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PREAMBLE

Higher education, particularly technical education, is critical to India’s aspirations of
strengthening its reputation as a major competitive player in the global knowledge economy on
the one hand and to fulfill the national expectations of social development on the other. Within
the huge and complex higher education system, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
occupy a place of pride. Even so, the various reviews of the existing IITs have led to a consensus
that there is scope for further improvement to make them world-class institutions.

The next 20 years of economic growth demand a much higher level of innovation,
technological discoveries, deeper technical competence and greater intellectual property, which
can only be created by an educational system focused on R&D, discovery and creativity. This
demands a reorientation of the higher education system in India. The IITs being at the pinnacle
of higher education have to lead the way, creating the scale, depth and innovation needed by the
nation. The IITs have a much smaller part of India’s technical ecosystem as compared to the role
they played even 25 years ago. Today, with only 7500 undergraduate (UG) and less than 1000
PhD students graduating every year, the output of the IITs is inadequate for the future. Clearly
the world has passed us by. If India has to be among the three largest economies of the world, the
IIT system has to grow several folds in terms of research output, the number of PhDs and student
graduation.

Issues of fair and affordable access to IITs are critical to provide a larger number of talented
Indians with capabilities to contribute to national economic and social development,
opportunities for employment and abilities to compete in the international arena.

The IITs should have standards benchmarked against the best universities around the
world. One of the essential ingredients for this is a good governance system with an independent
and fully empowered Board with representation from key constituents such as scientific
establishment, industry, alumni, faculty and Government.

A good governance system helps to create a stimulating ecosystem to attract talented
students and faculty and motivate the latter through a performance-based incentives structure.
An enlightened governance system encourages faculty to engage in advanced research,
technology development and consulting to stay abreast of new developments and to bring
essential knowledge into the classroom. It provides the scope for quantum leap in the output of

3

postgraduates and undergraduates of exceptional quality. It stimulates a culture of innovation,
encourages large-scale faculty development programmes and improves productivity. It creates a
system of checks and balances, focusing on excellence and innovation. It motivates alumni to
contribute generously and willingly fund facilities for the development of the institution. Good
governance ensures that stakeholders, including students, faculty, institutional management, as
well as those from the wider society, have full confidence and trust in our IITs, and that the IITs
meet the objectives for which they have been set up.

Established by the Parliament of India as institutions of national importance, the IITs
presently enjoy a considerable degree of academic autonomy and a reasonable degree of
administrative autonomy but much lower levels of financial autonomy. They have the potential
to demonstrate their capability as world-class institutions provided they are entrusted with a
higher degree of administrative and financial autonomy than presently available, with assurances
of impeccable accountability. This would require incorporation of drastically new models of
relationships among the IITs and the Government, as also new forms of consultation and
coordination with the IIT Council and other policy-making bodies. Fresh approaches to the fee
structure and financial support are required to be evolved, along with several major changes to
the present IIT Act.

4

Introduction

1.1 Current State of Higher Education in India
India has one of the largest “Higher Education Systems” in the world. From 20

universities and 500 colleges at the time of Independence, it now has more than

500 universities and 25,000 colleges. [1]

The Government of India (GoI) has looked upon higher education as an

instrument to invest in to achieve the national priorities of economic and social

development, including improved quality of life for all and building technological

leadership, as well as global priorities such as sustainable and equitable

management of earth resources. Today, higher education is an enabler of

economic growth as well as an indicator of the prosperity of a nation. Realizing

this potential, GoI is formulating major policies related to higher education to

meet the changing needs within the country and to be an effective player in the

globalized knowledge economy. For example, in FY 2011, GoI has projected an

outlay of about Rs 85,000 crore for higher education during the XIth Five-Year

Plan period which marks more than a 9-fold increase over the Xth Plan outlay for

the same sector.[2] About 38% of this outlay is allotted for higher technical

education.[3]

In the last decade, the system of higher education has been reviewed by both

government commissioned committees as well as others, for reforms from

different perspectives. The focus of these studies broadly has been on the lines of:

(i) growth of institutions, (ii) access to higher education, and (iii) enhancing the

quality of education.

7

The growth rate of institutions in the last 10 years has been of the order of

13% per annum. While this has addressed the challenge of quantity, this steep

increase has had implications in terms of quality. Similarly, the proportion of

population in the age group of 18–24 years that has access to higher education, or

Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), is of the order of 13% (which is low as compared

to 54.6% in developed countries and 22% for Asian countries) and only 25% of

this GER receive postgraduate education.[4] The GER is proposed to be raised to

30% by 2020. Similarly, the globalization of higher education has added newer

dimensions in terms of quality assurance systems, equivalence of degrees and

transparency in the regulatory structures of national systems. Over 450,000

students write the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission to close to

7500 seats in the IITs, showing the great demand for quality education; a much

larger number do not even take the examination as they see no possibility of

clearing them. At the same time, India today has over 250,000 of its young

students studying abroad, demonstrating the great demand for quality education.

India has not been able to meet the needs of our young for quality higher

education.

Here is a brief snapshot of contemporary work. The Scientific Advisory

Council to the Prime Minister of India [5] has talked about why India’s presence in

the world of Science (including engineering) cannot be ignored. The National
[6]
Knowledge Commission has focused on 5 key areas: Access, Concepts,
[7]
Creation, Applications and Services. The PAN IIT had arrived at 5 action

(Pancha Ratnas) areas: (i) Implement comprehensive reforms in policies and

governance, (ii) Mandate quality and increase capacity, (iii) Enable quantum

improvement in faculty service conditions, (iv) Deploy technology for teaching

and collaborative research, and (v) Establish an active Industry–academia

8

[8]
interface. The Yashpal Committee has made recommendations on the

renovation and rejuvenation of higher education. In another study on “The
[9]
Higher Education in India: The Need for Change”, Pavan Agrawal has

recommended strategies to make higher education affordable and accessible to all

by achieving policy coherence. The Rama Rao Committee [10] has comprehensively

addressed the 11 points in its Terms of Reference for the IIT Review Committee

including Vision/Mission, Admissions, Governance mechanism, Partnerships and

Infrastructure.

1.2 Universities System and Technical Education
Universities play a critical role in making our higher education system

vibrant – through creating knowledge, disseminating knowledge and managing

the knowledge assets. The linkage between learning, research and innovation

within higher education is the key to the building of sustainable knowledge

societies.

Based on the provisions for academic, administrative and financial

flexibility, there are different types of universities and institutions in the higher

education system in the country. Some universities were established by an Act of

Parliament while others were established by the state legislatures. Those

established by Acts of Parliament are central universities and those set up by the

state legislatures are state universities. In addition, some higher education

institutions are granted the “deemed to be university” status by GoI. Furthermore,

a few institutions are established as institutions of national importance by

Parliament. Finally, there are the open universities which offer distance education

programmes. The universities could be of unitary type with single or even

multiple campuses, or an affiliating type. Universities that are deemed to be
9

universities and institutions of national importance are degree granting

institutions.

The last 5 years has seen a tremendous increase in engineering education in

terms of the number of affiliated institutions, especially in the private funding

space. [11] Here is a snapshot of the growth of AICTE-approved institutions:

Growth of AICTE-approved technical institutions in last five years

Added in
Year Engg MCA Mgmt Phar Arch HMCT Total
Year

2005–06 1,475 976 1,052 629 118 70 4,320 383

2006–07 1,511 1,003 1,132 665 116 64 4,491 171

2007–08 1,668 1,017 1,149 854 116 81 4,885 394

2008–09 2,388 1,095 1,523 1,021 116 87 6,230 1,345

2009–10 2,972 1,169 1,940 1,081 106 93 7,361 1,131

Source: AICTE Website, Last accessed in Nov 2010

Growth of intake in AICTE-approved institutions in last five years

10

Added in
Year Engg Mgmt MCA Pharm Arch HMCT Total
year

2005–06 499,697 80,464 55,548 32,708 4,379 4,435 677,231 40,691

2006–07 550,986 94,704 56,805 39,517 4,543 4,242 750,797 73,566

2007–08 653,290 121,867 70,513 52,334 4,543 5,275 907,822 157,025

2008–09 841,018 149,555 73,995 64,211 4,543 5,794 1,139,116 231,294

2009–10 1,071,896 179,561 78,293 68,537 4,133 6,387 1,408,807 269,691

Source: AICTE Website, Last accessed in Nov 2010

Legend: 1. Engg: Engineering, 2. Mgmnt: Management, 3. MCA: Master

of Computer Applications, 4. Phar: Pharmacy, 5. Arch: Architecture, 6.

HMCT: Hotel Management, Catering and Tourism

Figure 1.1 : AICTE Approved Institutions and Their Intake

The above data does not include universities established under the UGC

Act. In addition, there are institutions like the IITs, NITs, IIITs, IISER and NISER

which had an annual intake of about 25,000 students in the year 2010, which is less

than 1-2% of the capacity of the total system.

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This large capacity expansion has created opportunities for young people to

graduate in engineering and technical streams. While some of these institutions

have done well in terms of the quality of education, overall, the graduates coming

out have not been able to find appropriate employment while industries have been

struggling to hire adequately equipped fresh engineers. While some of these

institutions have postgraduate programmes, very little research work is done in

these institutions. IITs and NITs, along with a few others, lead the quest for

quality. While it is true that the IITs have to raise the bar of excellence further,

they have to take leadership for driving the quality journey for other technical

institutions too.

1.3 Centrally Funded Institutions
There are 88 Centrally funded institutions of technical and science

education for students coming out of schools (10+2). Of these, there are 15 IITs,

20 NITs (another 10 NITs are proposed), 10 IIITs, 5 IISERs and 1 NISER. With

the recent initiative of the Government, these institutions are receiving greater

attention and financial support. We can expect a systematic upgrading of these

institutions over a period of time. The NITs, along with some of the better

engineering education institutions, should become important feeders of quality

graduates into postgraduate and research programmes, including at the IITs.

Some other institutions are relatively young and are likely to soon flourish into

schools of excellence. The availability of high quality young scientists and

technologists coming out from these institutions should enable science-based

technological research pursuits in a much greater measure than what is possible at

present.

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1.4 50 + Years of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
The Indian Institutes of Technology are now under The Institutes of

Technology Act, 1961 and were set up to impart world-class, high quality

education in engineering and technology at the undergraduate, postgraduate and

PhD levels to students selected through national-level selection processes. Over

the years, the IITs have distinguished themselves through excellence in academics

and research.

1.5 The Beginnings
The origin of the IITs can be traced back to the interim report of the Sarkar

Committee that envisaged setting up of institutions to meet the anticipated

requirements of post-War (1939–45) industrial development. These institutions

were to prepare high quality engineering graduates to meet the needs of

developing India soon after Independence. Five IITs were established in quick

succession in the 1950s. These IITs have now completed 50 years of existence.

The first IIT was established at Kharagpur in 1951. IIT Bombay came into

existence in 1958 and IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi followed in 1959,

1960 and 1961, respectively. The first batch of 169 IIT graduates passed out of IIT

Kharagpur in 1955. IIT Delhi had its first batch of 111 students pass out in 1966.

All 5 IITs put together graduated 1201 students in 1967. These 5 IITs have grown

in size over the years and in 2010–11, IIT Kharagpur alone admitted 1500 UG

students into its various programmes.

After a gap of 34 years, a new IIT was set up at Guwahati in 1995. University

of Roorkee was accorded the status of an IIT in 2001. Six new IITs came up in

2008 at Patna, Rajasthan, Hyderabad, Ropar, Bhubaneswar and Gandhinagar.

Another 2 IITs came up in 2009 at Mandi and Indore. By 2009, the total number
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of IITs rose to 15. In 2010–11, all 15 IITs together admitted 7678 UG, 7152

Masters and 1799 PhD students. The same year, 959 PhD degrees were awarded

by the 7 established IITs.

1.6 Review of IITs
Over the years, the IITs have been reviewed thrice. The first review

happened separately for each IIT. In 1971, IIT Madras was reviewed by a

committee chaired by Professor P.L. Bhatnagar. This was followed by IIT Bombay

in 1972 by Dr H.N. Sethna and IIT Kharagpur, Kanpur and Delhi in 1973 by Shri

G. Pande, Dr S. Bhagavantham and Shri M.R. Chopra, respectively.

A joint review of all the IITs took place under the Chairmanship of Dr Y.

Nayudamma in 1986. [12] The committee applauded the IITs for producing B.Tech

graduates of excellent quality and comparable to the best in the world. It also

commended the IITs for their role in upgrading of engineering education in the

country but questioned their impact on national, industrial, economic and social

development. The IITs were prodded to make a conscious and concerted attempt

to excel in research and to be in the forefront in at least a few areas with research

groups of international standards. The IITs were also asked to improve their

interaction with industry through a variety of mechanisms. On the scaling up of

quality technical education, the Committee felt that institutions like the Regional

Engineering Colleges (later renamed as NITs) must receive infusion of funds and

should be upgraded but did not suggest new IITs. Interestingly, they also

suggested a cap on an optimum campus size of 2500 students for each IIT.

Since then the IITs have steadily grown in size and in 2002–03, all 7 IITs

together graduated 2274 UG, 3675 PG and 444 PhD students with a faculty

strength of 2375.
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A second joint review of all the IITs took place under the chairmanship of

Dr Rama Rao in 2004. The Committee report succinctly captures “Why IITs are
[13]
Important to the Nation”. Among the many recommendations made by the

Committee, the following are notable:

 Faculty matters: Provision to induct foreign nationals as faculty and joint

appointments with industry.

 Research enhancement: Incentivizing research performance, strengthening

PhD programme, bright B.Tech students to be taken into the PhD

programme, identifying grand challenge, research problems, etc.

 Educational system: Science and HSS content in B.Tech must be enhanced;

apart from basic research, projects that are design or business centric must

be encouraged.

 Brand IIT through IPR: IITs must promote new thinking about innovation;

dedicated IP management centres a must.

 IIT-Industry Linkage: Joint research projects with industry funds that will

attract tax incentives, encourage and reward entrepreneurship of their

graduates.

 Expansion: Increase in B.Tech intake is an absolute need; upgrading of

existing institutions like the NITs.

The Rama Rao committee felt that there was no need for any change to the IITs
Act for implementation of any of its recommendations.

1.7 IITs – Their Achievements, Aspirations, Concerns
In the recent past, IITs have undergone expansion at the UG and PG levels

both in terms of new academic programmes and even a 54% increase in student

intake. The IITs have initiated ambitious research efforts, entered the arena of
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business incubation, learnt to engage with world-class universities through MoUs,

etc. Five IITs have celebrated their golden jubilees and during that period paused

to take stock of their achievements, articulate their aspirations and voice their

concerns. The Committee’s understanding of this is given below:

Achievements: As pointed out by 2 review committees, the IITs have met the

challenge of creating a world-class undergraduate programme and attracted the

intellectual cream of India into its campuses and produced graduates who have

gone out to occupy positions of importance in all spheres of activities. Over 50

years, IIT has become a brand.

 Having established its educational programme, the IITs turned their

attention to research and over a short period of 2 decades have risen in

global stature consistent with the infusion of funds they have received.

 Academic programmes at the IITs underwent change continuously to keep

pace with changing times. New programmes in upcoming areas have

continuously been added. PG programmes have gained strength and PhD

programmes have seen increased output.

 Funded research has gained momentum with tremendous increase in R&D

funding. The total R&D funding of all the IITs put together in 2010 was

about Rs. 573 crore.

 The IITs have turned their focus on patenting and technology transfer and

have pioneered business incubation and are slowly growing in these fronts.

Aspirations: Having reached levels of achievement that have been noticed
globally, the IITs now aspire for higher things.

 Sustain the high quality education. The IITs have put in place a world-

renowned education system on their campuses. These academic

programmes have a distinct character of rigour, flexibility, being futuristic,
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integrally linked to research, strong in design component and being

connected to local challenges.

 Research that makes a difference. Impact-making research that addresses

major challenges faced by the nation and the world and important

fundamental issues of the area are dreams that IITs wish to turn into reality.

 World-class infrastructure. Basic campus infrastructure, infrastructure for

education, modern classrooms and laboratories, infrastructure for research,

infrastructure that nurtures innovation and entrepreneurship, linkages with

industry and society, and major investment in facilities to enable cutting

edge research.

 Outstanding faculty. The need to attract top-class students of the nation into

the teaching profession in large numbers is a challenging proposition.

Attractive salaries, start-up grants, excellent research facilities and good

campus life are factors that can influence this.

 Performance evaluation and tenure systems. These are possible ways of

nurturing world-class faculty. Becoming a faculty at an IIT should become

the most coveted position and must attract top UG students to PhD

programmes, and the best among them to faculty positions.

 Support systems: Strong administrative and technical support will enable

faculty to be productive, and achieve their potential.

Concerns: The IITs have concerns related to funds and human resource.

 Government funding of institutes of national importance has steadily grown

over the years. The cost of research infrastructure to support cutting edge

research in upcoming areas has far outpaced this increase in funding.

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Further increase in public support is thus essential for improvement of the

IITs.

 Availability of quality faculty is a major concern. Lesser numbers of top-

class students are opting for postgraduate studies.

 Ageing physical infrastructure. Many of the buildings are 40–50 years old

and need significant rehabilitation.

 World ranking of IITs by popular ranking systems have always disappointed

the IITs themselves and all stakeholders who wish to see the IITs ranked

within the top 100. Rising to meet this expectation is challenging and needs

expansion of research activity, which is intimately linked to funding.

 The sudden increase in intake and the effort of mentoring the new IITs have

strained the established IITs. All the IITs are suffering from infrastructure

deficit and inadequate administrative systems and staff. Faculty is under

strain due to the overload of academic as well as non-academic functions.

 Inadequate autonomy to chart out their own future.

1.8 HRD Minister’s Brainstorming Session with Chairmen, BoG and Directors

of IITs
Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister, HRD, convened a Retreat of the Chairmen and

Directors of all IITs and some members of the IIT Council on 4 February 2010.

The main purpose of the Retreat was to draw an outline of the future vision of the

IITs and how to bring them amongst the top 50 or 100 institutions in the world by

2020. The brainstorming session that followed discussed the following important

issues:

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1.Faculty induction and development

2.Academics: Rationalization of admissions and diversity in syllabi

3.Research: Infrastructure and outcomes

4.Governance issues: Finance, infrastructure and administration

5.Developing external linkages: Industry, Alumni, School system,

Technical Universities

The sessions envisaged setting up of 6 committees to look into various aspects.

These are as under:

1. Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof. Anandakrishnan, Chairman,

IIT Kanpur, to give a roadmap on how IITs can be among the top 50/100

institutions in the world in the next 5 years.

2. Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof. D. Acharya, Director, IIT

Kharagpur, to consider issues of School Boards and Admissions into

postgraduate courses such as M.Tech, M.Sc and MBA. The Committee

should study the feasibility of designing an aptitude based SAT-like exam for

admission into IIT courses.

3. Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ajai Choudhary, Chairman,

BoG, IIT Hyderabad, to suggest ways of diversification of syllabi to make it

more industry friendly and relevant to the needs of a developing economy.

4. Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof Sanjay Dhande, Director, IIT

Kanpur, for reporting the requirement of infrastructure for research.

5. Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof Gautam Barua, Director, IIT

Guwahati, to give a blueprint of the new governance structure within IITs.

6. Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof T. Gonsalves, Director, IIT

Mandi, to give a report on developing external linkages.

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1.9 Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee – Formation and Terms of Reference
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) vide its order

dated 3 February 2010, constituted a Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr

Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, BoG, IIT Bombay, to suggest a roadmap for

strengthening the financial, administrative and academic autonomy of the IITs.

The Committee includes eminent members like Shri T.V. Mohandas Pai, Member

of the Board and Director, Human Resources, Infosys; Shri Hari Bhartia, Co-

Chairman and MD of Jubilant Organosys; Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT

Madras, Chennai; Dr. K. Mohandas, Vice-Chancellor, Kerala University of Health

Sciences; Shri Ashok Thakur, Additional Secretary, MHRD.

The Terms of Reference for the Committee also included suggesting how to

attract top students of the country into postgraduate studies in India, growth of

the established IITs, establishment of new IITs and improving interaction among

IITs, IIMs, IIIT, etc. The constitution of the Committee and detailed Terms of

Reference are at Appendix I. Prof. Anandakrishnan Chairman, BoG, IIT Kanpur;

Prof. Gautam Barua, Director, IIT Guwahati, and Prof. T. Gonsalves, Director, IIT

Mandi, were subsequently co-opted with the Committee as the aspects to be

looked at by their committees as identified during the Retreat overlapped with the

terms of reference of the Kakodkar Committee.

1.10 Stakeholders’ Voice
The Committee conducted an online survey to seek inputs from the various

stakeholders of the IIT system. The survey was in the form of 58 questions

grouped into 12 themes, and it was run for nearly a month (28 days) in July 2010.

All the questions had a text box where respondents could express their detailed

20

opinion. In addition, 46 of the questions had radio-buttons for respondents to

quickly indicate their reaction by choosing one of 3 options – Agree /Disagree/No

Comments. Radio-button responses readily lent themselves to interpretation (as

to what percentage agreed, disagreed, etc.). Textual responses, on the other hand,

had to go through a detailed content analysis to extract the gist of the sentiments

expressed. The survey registered 5170 visits and received 3755 responses. Each

respondent identified him/herself to belong to one or more of the following 13

categories:

1 Alumni of IIT
2 Industry that hires IIT students
3 Industry that sponsors funded research at any IIT
4 Industry that hires consultants from IIT faculty
5 Industry at large
6 Educationist
7 Government official
8 Faculty of IIT
9 Current UG student of IIT
10 Current PG student of IIT
11 Current PhD student of IIT
12 Public at large
13 Staff of IIT

The survey reflected the expectations, hopes and aspirations of the various

stakeholders. Many of them, as part of their constructive criticism, offered

insightful, practical and “out-of the-box” suggestions on how to take the IITs

forward. They were also not sparing in their criticism on what ails the IITs and

how to treat the “maladies”. A summary of these inputs is at Appendix II and all

details are available at the online survey website. [14]

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Brand IIT: A large majority agreed that “Brand IIT”, created mostly by the success

of the alumni, is a “good thing”. But the IITs need to do much more to promote,

sustain and leverage the Brand, and to make it truly world class. Their suggestions

in this regard included more emphasis on publications and IPR generation, more

industry collaboration and techno-entrepreneurial ventures, holding international

technology/student festivals and marketing achievements and current initiatives

using, if necessary, professional agencies. Periodic review of the structure and

pattern of JEE to ensure true quality and caution against expansion at the expense

of quality (including reservations) also figured in the responses.

As an Academic Institution: While the IITs do respond to new challenges, they

will need to do much more, such as (i) attract UGs to PG programmes, (ii) attract

and retain good faculty, (iii) attract experienced industry personnel in teaching

and research, (iv) undertake innovative and industry oriented research and (v)

achieve “world-class status”. This is necessary if the IITs are to remain centres of

academic excellence. Several useful and diverse suggestions have been made for

this. Most were against “diversification” to include non-technical disciplines (arts,

law, medicine, etc.) for fear of brand dilution; instead they suggested partnering

with reputed institutions in those fields.

Research: The quantum and quality of research, the respondents felt, must

increase by focusing on industry oriented, India-centric, societal and

environmental issues, as well as by encouraging interdisciplinary (other scientific

disciplines, humanities and social sciences) and inter-institutional collaboration.

Discouraging repetitive research, focusing on innovations and commercial

viability and the use of indigenous knowledge are suggestions to increase the

depth, diversity and relevance of the research efforts at the IITs. Every IIT can

22

concentrate on certain specific areas and become “top of the heap” in the world in

those fields. The creation of a post of research director and permanent non-

teaching positions, increasing UG and PG programmes, encouraging UG research

while decreasing the overemphasis on B.Tech and setting up industrial parks (e.g.

as done by IIT-M) are among the several suggestions received for improvement of

research in the Institutes. There are many recommendations for improving

laboratory management and for enhancing funding, including upward revision of

tuition fees.

Improving Technical Education in India: While the IITs have excelled in

producing high quality B.Techs, they need to do much more towards improving

technical education in India and raising the level of general technical skills in the

country. Suggestions in this regard include (i) training of teachers, (ii) organizing

distance learning programmes and web-based classes/lectures for other

engineering/technical institutes, and (iii) conducting workshops for schools and

engineering colleges. Producing top-class PhDs, generating leadership in key areas

to address problems/issues relevant to the country and focusing on select areas

like water resource management, urban planning, etc., were suggested by the

respondents. They also stressed the need for more industrial exposure for both

UG and PG students.

As a Technology Provider: The IITs have not played a significant role as a

provider of viable technologies for a variety of reasons (many have been cited).

Chief among the suggestions for improvement on this score are (i) setting up

industrial parks, (ii) government departments establishing R&D centres in or near

IIT campuses, (iii) encouraging industries in their sectors to do the same, (iv)

effective, accessible and transparent technology transfer/commercialization

23

mechanisms, and (v) better marketing of IITs’ strengths and achievements. The

IITs should, together or individually, set up mechanisms that will help translate

the ideas and technologies emerging from the Institutes into viable industrial

ventures. Such mechanisms/entities should focus on the selection of potentially

viable technologies, identifying industrial partners/venture capitalists, initial

hand-holding for technology proving, seed marketing and follow-up assistance

until the industry can go forward with confidence. The large majority, including

students, do not think that an R&D and innovation fostering programme will

hinder academic activities. However, 33% of the faculty feels that it might!

IPR Generation: IITs must focus on IPR generation and protection. Among the

suggestions in this regard are (i) easily accessible IPR offices with knowledgeable

and interested faculty heading them, (ii) law courses with IPR focus (“legal-

engineering bridge”- alumni’s suggestion), (iii) courses in research ethics, (iv)

programmes on the logistics of patenting that will help to understand the whole

process and make it easier and faster. Over emphasis on publication is to be

avoided. They must also devise ways and means to encourage/enhance creative

thinking among students and faculty, and facilitate their becoming leaders in

nation building, though there was no agreement on how this could be achieved.

As a Workplace/Employer: While most agreed that an IIT is a good place to

work/good employer, reforms/ “change” in organizational structure and ethos are

essential to make them much more efficient, agile and even-handed. More

autonomy, liberation of the faculty from administrative yoke and recruitment of

overseas faculty are the major suggestions in this regard. However staff and

government officials did not offer any comments.

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IITs and Society: The IITs must engage much more with the society through,

among other things, local governments and NGOs, in local and regional issues

such as sanitation, water management, road safety and environmental issues like

pollution control technologies - green technologies - and adopt initiatives similar

to the “corporate social responsibility” of companies (teaching in the villages,

helping other colleges and universities, compulsory NSS, helping SMEs, etc.).

As Catalysts of Economic Development: The Institutes should become catalysts

for economic development by working with industry to solve their complex

problems, incubating knowledge enterprises, creating an engineering talent base

and encouraging small industries. Focus must also be on fostering innovative

ideas for futuristic technologies, student participation in industry related activities

and on incubating enterprises catering to solving burning societal problems, even

if they are not expected to yield immediate results. A majority however felt that

the IITs are not easily accessible/responsive (except to “big” industries), with some

even doubting IIT faculty’s ability/expertise in solving industry problems.

Mission, Vision and Mega National Projects: A majority of the respondents

opined that the IITs have not formulated a clear vision and mission, or even if

they have, not implemented it. IITs should join hands with IISERs, NITs, IISc and

IIMs to take up large national projects, and should also cooperate with and

complement each other. Most felt that teaching must be the main focus for UGs,

and research for PGs; however, 32% felt that consultancy, with lower weightage,

may also form part of the Institutes’ responsibilities. Setting up of overseas

campuses was favoured by 36% (mainly for raising funds).

Financial Autonomy: While financial independence from Government was

strongly favoured, most felt that the IITs should do a lot more to raise funds. They

25

have suggested several strategies for it, including generation of income from IPR,

effective and persistent fund-raising efforts, industrial consultancy, joint ventures

and even “radical privatization”. 32% suggested that IITs should become self

financing by increasing the tuition fees. 71% favoured performance-based

differential pay for the faculty.

Performance Evaluation of IITs: Most of the respondents are not aware if

mechanisms and/or metrics are in place for performance evaluation of IITs, but

felt strongly that such mechanisms must be put in place. Only 4 out of the 8

faculty who responded to the question, were aware of previous evaluation

committees; they felt that no follow-up action was taken on the recommendations.

Some felt that competition among the IITs may serve as an automatic evaluation

mechanism.

1.11 China Visit

The Committee took up a study to understand best practices in world-class

universities. While people are familiar with US universities of good standing, the

same is not true with respect to Chinese universities. Several universities in China

have world-class ranking. The team visited China during 3–6 November 2010 and

met with key decision makers and stakeholders of select world-class universities in

the Shanghai and Beijing clusters. While a detailed report on their observations,

analysis and viewpoints is available [15] a brief summary is given below.

The higher education system in China has undergone a major

transformation in the last decade. In some universities, the scale up has been to

the tune of 6 times or more over a 10-year time span. Chinese university campuses

are very large, some typically with 30,000–40,000 students studying and living on
26

campuses of around 1000 acres. Accommodation for students on the campus is

compulsory according to the law. Around 1000 universities in China offer a 4-year

programme. Of these, around 500 offer Masters programmes and 300 offer

doctoral programmes. China will soon start producing around 50,000 PhDs

annually. Some of the large universities already graduate around 1600 PhDs

annually.

The budget in larger universities could well be above RMB 1.5 billion with a

significant portion coming from industry. Universities have undergone

considerable augmentation of infrastructure with several new campuses that have

been recently established. Infrastructure upkeep is outsourced and was seen to be

in an excellent state.

Universities enjoy institutional autonomy under Central government

guidance. There is a system of comprehensive performance assessment of the

faculty, which is done annually. Faculty compensation may vary by as much as a

factor of 10 depending on the performance measured on the basis of teaching,

research output, technology, resources brought in, IPR generated, linkage with

industry/local government, etc. In very special cases, faculty compensation may

even touch RMB 1 million.

Most of the universities that were visited had a large science park, some as

large as 4000 acres, in close proximity. Such parks house a wide variety of

industrial research, including technology incubators, start-ups, research parks and

standalone industry R&D facility, all making up a large innovation ecosystem.

While the higher education system in China has gone through a major scale

up, now there seems to be a greater attention towards enhancing quality. A graded

system of support towards this objective is in place. To promote excellence, 100

27

better performing universities are supported under National Programme 211.

Forty among them are specially treated under National Programme 985, with 9

best universities forming a part of the prestigious C-9 Programme.

1.12 Structure of the Report
This report is presented in 9 chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction

for the whole report and briefly outlines the formation of the IITs and goes on to

summarize the growth of the IITs during the past 6 decades, summarizes

observations of the committees that reviewed these institutes in the past and

explains the circumstances leading to formation of this Committee. This chapter

also summarizes what the stakeholders have to say about the IITs. Chapter 2 takes

stock of the IITs. Chapter 3 looks at the IITs as research institutions and addresses

how to get these to become world class through setting goals. Chapter 4 dwells on

issues of governance and autonomy essential to help IITs achieve excellence.

Chapter 5 takes a look at expectations from faculty and their roles and

responsibilities. Chapter 6 is on role of the staff at the IITs. Chapter 7 looks at

innovation and entrepreneurship at the IITs. Chapter 8 is on the scaling of quality

engineering education in India starting with the IITs. Chapter 9 sums up the

contents of Chapters 1 to 8.

References
1. ‘Annual Report 2009-10’, Department of School Education and

Literacy Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human

28

Resource Development, Government of India, p. 108.

http://www.education.nic.in/AR/AR2009-10/AR2009-10.pdf. (Last accessed

in Jan 2011).

2. ‘Outcome Budget 2010-11’, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of

Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi, p. 78.

http://education.nic.in/planbudget/OutcomeBgt-2010-11-HE-E.pdf. (Last

Accessed in Jan 2011)

3. ‘Five Actions to Reform Higher Education in India’, July 2009, PanIIT

PanchRatna, http://paniitalumni.org/downloads/paniit-panch-ratna.pdf.

(Last Accessed in Jan 2011).

4. Ibid.

5. ‘India as a Global Leader in Science’, Science Advisory Council to the Prime

Minister, August 2010.

6. Recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, Government of

India, New Delhi, 2009.

7. ‘Five Actions to Reform Higher Education in India’, July 2009, PanIIT

PanchRatna, http://paniitalumni.org/downloads/paniit-panch-ratna.pdf.

(Last Accessed in Jan 2011).

8. ‘Report of Prof Yashpal Committee to Advise on Renovation and

Rejuvenation of Higher Education, http://www.aicte-

india.org/misyashpal.htm#. (Last Accessed in Jan 2011).

9. ‘Higher Education in India, The Need for Change’, Pavan Agrawal, 2006,

http://www.icrier.org/pdf/ICRIER_WP180__Higher_Education_in_India_.

pdf. (Last Accessed in Jan 2011).

10. ‘Indian Institutes of Technology, Report of Rama Rao Committee’, 2004.

29

11. ‘Growth of Different Programmes in Technical Education’, All India

Council For Technical Education, New Delhi. http://www.aicte-

india.org/misappgrowth.htm, (Last Accessed in Jan 2011).

12. ‘IIT Review Committee 2006, Report of Nayudamma Committee’, 1986.

13. ‘Indian Institutes of Technology, Report of Rama Rao Committee’, 2004.

14. Detailed Stakeholder inputs from online survey conducted by Kakodkar

Committee, http://www.casde.iitb.ac.in/kakodkar-

committee/stakeholder_survey/, 2010.

15. ‘China Higher Education Study - A Report’. Understanding Best Practices

from World-Class Universities in China, Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee,

November 2010.

30

Current State of IITs

Our country needs high quality scientists and engineers in large numbers

commensurate with our national development needs and the size of our young

population. Unfortunately, more than 500,000 graduates who come out of our

engineering colleges annually (in the next 3 years, the number is likely to cross a

million) have not met the expectations in terms of quality. This has resulted in a

large number of the graduates coming out of these colleges being found

unemployable needing training even while there is an acute shortage of capable

engineers and technologists to meet the requirements of industry and other

segments.

2.1 National Needs in Engineering Education
Engineers and technologists are required for practically every aspect of the

nation-building activity, and management of infrastructure and new products that

improve the quality of life. They are involved in activities that generate

technologies and wealth and make the nation more competitive and powerful. In

this new era of knowledge economy, there is a need to emphasize on creating an

ecosystem that promotes innovation in our higher engineering and technological

institutions. While the shortage of employable engineers and large disparity in

quality among engineering graduates is in itself a serious issue and needs a

resolution, a more serious issue is with regard to finding quality input to

postgraduate education, training and research in engineering and technology.

With India marching ahead, it must be able to develop technologies for itself as

well as for global markets on a large scale. This necessitates a strong R&D and
33

innovation culture and pursuits in all our higher technical education and research

institutions. For high-end activities that involve new technology and development,

one needs to have high quality engineers and technologists at the postgraduate

and PhD levels in large numbers. Since new technology often evolves out of new

scientific knowledge, the disciplines of science and engineering have to co-exist.

Most of our engineering institutions lack depth in science. Emerging India

requires emphasis on high quality human resource with higher end capabilities in

engineering and technology. Stated simply, we need considerable scale up in the

number of PhDs in engineering with an attendant scale up at the graduate and

postgraduate levels to provide quality inputs into research and technology

endeavours, apart from other areas where also there are shortages.

2.2 IITs and National Scene in Engineering Education
While this challenge is very large and needs involvement of all our

institutions and many more, the IITs, being on top of the technical education

pyramid, have to lead the way and also significantly influence the quest for quality

among others.

One of the distinguishing features of the IITs is their strong emphasis on

research. The established IITs have a significant proportion of students (more

than 50%) in their postgraduate programmes (Masters and PhD) in engineering,

sciences and humanities. The IITs are thus perhaps the only institutions where

engineering undergraduates study in an environment of research being done by a

large number of postgraduate students. Some data on current student intake at all

the IITs is given in Table 2.1.

34

Table 2.1 : Intake into 15 IITs

Intake of Students into Various Programmes at IITs
S. Name of
2009–2010 2010–2011
No. the Institute
Maste

UG Masters PhD Total UG rs PhD Total

1 IIT Bombay 746 1,038 219 2,003 880 1,275 291 2,446

2 IIT Delhi 712 1,019 356 2,087 857 1,128 204 2,189

3 IIT Kanpur 785 464 196 1,445 987 618 173 1,778

IIT

4 Kharagpur 1,289 1,354 352 2,995 1,512 1,582 380 3,474

IIT

5 Madras 684 851 233 1,768 849 937 153 1,939

IIT

6 Roorkee 905 885 313 2,103 1,008 997 160 2,165

7 IIT Guwahati 498 454 246 1,198 588 545 299 1,432

IIT

8 Bhubaneswar 109 0 9 118 124 0 14 138

IIT

9 Gandhinagar 109 0 14 123 128 0 8 136

IIT

10 Hyderabad 112 32 29 173 125 70 50 245

11 IIT Indore 107 0 3 110 123 0 16 139

12 IIT Mandi 98 0 0 98 125 0 20 145

13 IIT Patna 120 0 29 149 120 0 17 137

14 IIT Rajasthan 106 0 0 106 134 0 1 135

15 IIT Ropar 104 0 10 114 118 0 13 131

Total 6,484 6,097 2,009 14,590 7,678 7,152 1,799 16,629

35

Data on Masters and PhD degrees awarded, journal publications and R&D funding
received by all IITs is given in Table 2.2. The 8 new IITs are too young to contribute
to this effort.

Table 2.2 : 15 IITs - Degrees awarded, Publications and Funding

Data for 2009–10 (Publications data is for 2009)

www.scopus.com
Journals in 2009
No. of Papers in
Year of starting

R&D Funding

Consultancy
Name of the

Technology

(Rs Crore)
(Rs crore)
(Rs crore)
Awarded

Awarded

Transfer
Institute

Strength
Degrees
Degrees
M.Tech

Faculty
S. No.

PhD

#
1 IIT Kharagpur 1951 745 155 537 1209 142 10 0.353

2 IIT Bombay 1958 706 179 487 711 86 16 0.340

3 IIT Madras 1959 464 173 427 836 68 23 0.600

4 IIT Kanpur 1960 503 131 345 756 70 8 0.670

5 IIT Delhi 1961 625 138 417 887 57 19 0.085

6 IIT Guwahati 1995 205 48 251 389 18 4 0.090

7 IIT Roorkee 2001* 682 135 379 590 56 30 -

8 IIT Patna$ 2008 - - 41 8 3 - -

9 IIT Rajasthan$ 2008 - - 21 0 43 0 0

10 IIT Hyderabad$ 2008 - - 80 1 27 0.02 0

11 IIT Gandhinagar$ 2008 - - 43 6 0.4 0.17 -

12 IIT Ropar$ 2009 - - 14 0 - - -

IIT
13 2009 - - 46 7 1.7 1 -
Bhubaneshwar$

14 IIT Mandi$ 2009 - - 14 0 0 0 0

15 IIT Indore$ 2009 - - 36 1 1.5 - -

Total 3,930 959 3,138 5,401 573.6 111.2 2.1

36

Notes:
# Data on Journal publications is got from www.scopus.com. Typical query used is : (affil
("Indian Institute of Technology Indore") or affil (IIT Indore) or affil (I.I.T. Indore) ) and
pubyear is 2009 and srctype (J)
 Established in 1847 as Roorkee College and in 1947 named as University of Roorkee. Year
of conversion into IIT is 2001.
$ These IITs are 2 to 3 years old and too early for PhD/Masters students to graduate

The pursuit of education and research together benefits both the students as

well as the faculty. Further, PhD programmes are excellent vehicles for training in

research and problem solving. Enhancing research in IITs both in terms of quality

as well as number of researchers is thus a national necessity. The IITs should

become centres of learning through their frontline research, technology power

houses through comprehensive R&D, globally recognized knowledge centres

through the quality of their human resources and output at the doctorate and

masters levels and, finally, credible solution providers to support society and

industry. Indigenous technology and innovation at the cutting edge are crucial for

India to succeed in global competition and frontline research is crucial for doing

so ahead of others. This requires pursuit of research, technology and education in

a strongly interlinked manner to maximize the synergy. This also requires several

disciplines in science, engineering, management and humanities to work together

to address the problems needing resolution. We thus need several major centres

where there is an ambience of scholarship that sustains strengths in individual

disciplines, of research that takes each discipline forward, of technology

development that leads to better quality of life for our people, generates wealth

and provides solutions and advice on different aspects of national development.

Such an ambience provides an excellent holistic learning opportunity to students

and prepares them as competent professionals who can take India forward. We

37

must remember that as India moves up the ladder in global competition, we would

need professional capabilities in research, technology and deployment that are

much more demanding than they are at present. Clearly the IITs, with their

achievements so far, provide an excellent launching pad for reaching new heights.

2.3 IITs and Global Scene in Engineering Education
There is thus a strong need to take the IITs even further as world-class

institutions with global ranking nearing the top. QS World University Rankings is

one of the popular rankings. Appendix III gives the QS World Rankings for the

top 10 ranks, followed by some of the more well-known institutions, and also the

first entry for each country ending with the first entry for India. India figures at

Rank 187 with IIT Bombay. Eleven Institutions from India which figure in the QS

Rankings for 2010 are given in Table 2.3. It must be noted here that QS ranks only

those institutions that have a UG programme.

38

Table 2.3 : QS Ranking of Some Indian Institutions of Engineering Education

Sl. No QS Rank 2010 Institution
1 187 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
2 202 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
3 249 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
4 262 Indian Institute of Technology Madras
5 311 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
6 371 University of Delhi
7 401–450 Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
8 451–500 University of Mumbai
9 501–550 Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
10 501–550 University of Calcutta
11 551–600 University of Pune

University ranking and the methodologies that are adopted have attracted

much criticism as well as acclaim. Even so, they do serve a purpose in qualitative

comparison of different institutions. But they need to be used wisely in order to

derive benefits. The following simple scenarios bring out certain interesting

observations. Many of the top-ranking institutions have a Medical School. QS has

classified all IITs to be without a medical school, which is accurate. The ranking of

IITs in comparison with institutions without a medical school is shown in Table

2.4.

39

Table 2.4 : Influence of Medical School on QS Ranking

QS Rank within
Institutions QS Rank
Institution
w/o Medical 2010
School
1 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Indian Institute of Technology
21 187
Bombay

24 202 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

37 249 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

39 262 Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Indian Institute of Technology
124 501–550
Guwahati

125 501–550 University of Calcutta

146 551–600 University of Pune

Note:

The above list looks at institutions that are classified by QS to be focusing
on all 5 areas but do not have a medical school. QS has wrongly classified
IIT Kharagpur to be focusing only on 2 areas and without a medical
school. For this reason, IIT Kharagpur is missing from the list.

QS Rankings consider the 5 areas listed below for measuring diversity of

disciplines on campus:

1. Arts and Humanities

2. Life Sciences and Medicine

3. Natural Sciences

4. Social Sciences

40

5. Engineering and Technology

QS considers all IITs, except IIT Kharagpur, to be focusing on all these 5

areas though in reality most IITs are not. (IIT Kharagpur is considered to be

focusing only on 2 areas.) This fact also adversely affects the ranking of IITs.

A significant factor in ranking is the quality and quantity of research and

perception of peers, which again is heavily influenced by the quality of research.

Thus, research output significantly influences these rankings. Hence, a scale up of

PhD programmes in the IITs, which is in fact a national necessity, can be highly

beneficial. Rather than doing so as a one-step process, we should target a planned

scale up over a reasonable period of time. We must ensure that quality is also

enhanced as we increase the number of PhDs. This would necessitate, in addition

to academic rigour, considerable augmentation of research infrastructure that

includes top-class laboratories for the pursuit of world-class research, laboratories

for focused technology development needed by industry and national missions

and an environment that nurtures innovation and entrepreneurship. Students

should be able to participate and have firsthand experience of practicing what they

learn in the classroom for problem-solving endeavours that make a significant

impact. They should learn to participate in multidisciplinary efforts for such

problem-solving activities that involve research, technology development,

innovation and entrepreneurship, and management and societal deployment

skills. Even as they do so, their grounding in a core discipline of their choice must

remain very sound.

As it is, the IITs are currently facing an acute shortage of faculty when it

comes to coping with the increased admissions and needs of the new IITs. Even

after the most aggressive faculty recruitment drive by tapping all possible sources,

there would be shortages. A significantly enlarged PhD programme would thus

41

find strong justification on this account alone. The number of PhDs that the

country would need is of course much larger. There is a large requirement of

faculty in higher technical academic institutions. Further, there is need for PhD-

level induction in the R&D activities of national laboratories and industries. We

should thus encourage PhD programmes at several academic and research centres

in the country. However, looking at the abysmally small number of PhDs (refer

Table 2.5) we produce in engineering and the state of research in different

institutions, it is clear that most of this load would have to be borne by the IITs.

Comparative data on population, GDP and number of PhDs in Engineering and

Technology in USA, China and India are shown in Table 2.5.

Table 2.5 : India, China and USA: A Comparison

Population
Country GDP No. of PhDs in
(billions in 2009)
$ T (2010) Eng & Technology
Source : World Bank
USA 0.31 14.1 7634 in 2009 [1]

CHINA 1.33 5.0 12000 in 2006 [2]

INDIA 1.15 1.5 1000 in 2006 [3]

To achieve such major transformational changes and sustain them at a level

of excellence that is world class would need an autonomous governance model

that is driven by a sound and enlightened philosophy, has strategic vision and

flexibility to nurture talent and adjust to specific needs, commitment to objectives

and adherence to the principle of accountability at the level of expected

deliverables. Such a governance system has to be based on decision-making

capability entirely within the institution which is duly guided by an enlightened

42

peer group both from within the institution and outside. Such institutions need to

be liberally funded so that they can be host to a large talent pool and a magnet to

attract even greater talent. The World Bank report Challenges of establishing world
[4]
class universities provides a good insight into what constitutes a world-class

university. The features of such an institution are depicted in Figure 2.1, which is

based on Jamil’s report.

Figure 2.1 : Challenges in Establishing World-Class Universities

Source: Adapted from Salmi Jamil, Challenges of Establishing World-Class Universities,

World Bank, Washington DC, 2009.

43

We must also recognize that the IITs have proven their credibility and

should be enabled to move to higher levels of excellence and realize their full

potential. As long as they demonstrate their performance following some

predetermined benchmark on human resource development, research excellence

and technology leading to value, we need not hesitate in treating them differently

from the rest of the public-funded systems in the Government. Since we are

looking at IITs as the engines of India’s technological and economic growth in a

competitive world, this approach is justifiable. A world-class institution needs a

world-class governance model.

References
1. National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics, 2009

Survey of Earned Doctorates.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf11305/tab1.xls

2. Gary Gereffi, et. al. ‘Getting the Numbers Right: International Engineering

Education in the US, China & India’, Journal of Engineering Education,

January 2008.

3. Ibid.

4. Jamil Salmi, Challenges of Establishing World-Class Universities, World

Bank, Washington DC, 2009.

44

IITs as Research Institutions

We live in a rapidly transforming knowledge era. Therefore we need high-

level knowledge workers, with the capability to design and innovate, in large

numbers commensurate with our large population and our growing economy.

Further, we need to be able to produce leaders with the vision and ability to

transform and to sustain ourselves in the interdependent and competitive world.

Technological capability of the country and more importantly in today’s context,

creating an innovation ecosystem is the key to India’s rapid progress towards the

highest levels of economic and social development. The IITs thus have an

important role in leading India’s emergence as a producer of high technology in

the country and the world and its translation to the marketplace.

While it is welcome and necessary for IIT education to become wider and

holistic and have programmes in humanities, management, law and medicine, it is

however necessary that all such programmes have focus and orientation towards

technology.

While doing so, the IITs have to also make a difference to the model of

inclusive development through delivery of appropriate technologies. This requires

research at the IITs to be scaled up and moulded to the above-mentioned

objectives. Presently, the IITs and IISc are the only institutions that produce PhD

scholars in engineering in some significant numbers. This, however, is far too

insignificant considering the requirement of higher technical education and

research alone. In the not too distant future, we should expect industries to need

PhDs in large numbers to support their own research needs. The reputation of the

IITs is built largely by their B.Tech and M.Tech alumni (most Indian industries

47

and government institutions have a large number of IIT M.Techs). Their

reputation as research institutes is not as high. Neither have they made as

significant a contribution to the development of technology. Their role in

identifying and defining the technologies that would be of special interest to India

has so far been limited (though in some specific areas some IITs have made a

small mark). It is necessary to change this focus and make the IITs into world-

class institutions engaged in education, research, technology, innovation and

society–industry engagement in the specific Indian context. We need to realize

this goal by building on the achievements and gains realized so far.

It is also to be noted that most reputed engineering institutions in the world

have acquired a certain size. The faculty strength in those institutions is close to

1200 or more and the number of students is more than 12,000. The IITs, in

comparison, are small. The established IITs have about 500 or less faculty

members and the number of students is around 6000. Even though infrastructure

may limit the growth of certain IITs, the Committee feels that each IIT should

strive to have 1200+ faculty members and student strength should be closer to

12,000. The growth, however, in accordance with the focus on research, should

come mainly from PhD students.

3.1 Scaling at IITs

3.1.1 Research Scholars
A large number of highly talented research scholars working with eminent

faculty in a very supportive environment is an important feature of a world-class

research institute. The IITs graduate about 1000 PhD scholars per year now,

though the numbers admitted have increased significantly in the last couple of

years. Research scholars doing MS are also not significant. The number of M.Tech
48

students has slowly increased over the years and to a limited extent they

contribute to research. It is here that the IITs have to change. They have to

significantly increase the number of its PhD scholars up to a scale that matters.

The number of PhD students graduating in India in engineering and technology is

around a factor of 10 less as compared to China and USA. Considering the

population and likely scale of India’s economy in the near future, the number of

PhD scholars graduating should be comparable.

Till recently there were 7 IITs. Eight new IITs have been set up in the last

few years. These are just beginning to recruit their faculty. At the same time, the

established IITs still have significantly less number of faculty members than they

require. Although adding a large number of IITs in a short time has been a major

challenge and perhaps should have been a more gradual process, there is an urgent

need to scale up the IIT system looking at their needs. It is likely that about 5 new

IIT would be set up in the coming decade (making at least one IIT in each major

state). These would all require faculty. PhD graduates of IITs would form a major

feeder for IIT faculty. Other educational institutes would also require PhD

graduates to strengthen their faculty. At the same time, as industry becomes

stronger in India, they would need large numbers of PhDs for their R&D activities.

We recommend that the IITs should strive to increase the number of PhD

graduates from the currently less than 1000 PhD students graduating each year, to

10,000 research scholars graduating every year by 2024–25. As a PhD student

would normally take 4 years to complete the programme, 10,000 PhD scholars

need to be admitted to the PhD programme at IITs by 2020–21. This is the

minimum number that would be required to meet the country’s requirements. For

20 IITs, it would mean an average of 500 PhDs. The established IITs have to strive

49

to reach a number of 800 to 900 PhDs graduating each year, so as to provide

leeway and time to the newer IITs to gear up.

The first reaction of most would be that such a scale up is not possible.

While it would not be an easy task, we would suggest the means to ensure that

such numbers are indeed achieved. There is little doubt that such numbers are

required by India. That it would be a big challenge for the IITs is also obvious. But

this becomes an opportunity not only to contribute to the nation, but also to

transform the IITs.

3.1.2 Faculty
Scaling of PhD scholars is not possible without scaling faculty numbers.[1] In

fact, while significant faculty strength is required to produce a significant number

of PhD scholars every year, the PhDs produced in the IITs would become a

potential input and allow the number of faculty members to grow. Some top-level

research institutes in the world produce about one PhD graduate for each faculty

member (who is not on leave). This ratio for the IITs is much lower.

The Committee recommends that the IITs quickly get 0.6 PhD students to

graduate for each faculty member every year and then strive to get to 1 PhD

student to graduate per faculty each year in the years to come, with an assumption

that the IITs would not let quality decline as they scale up. These ratios will

establish IITs as premier research institutions. With an average of 0.6 PhD

graduates for each faculty member and a target of 10,000 PhD students graduating

from the IIT system every year, faculty strength at the IITs needs to grow to 16,000

by 2020–25. This is indeed a tall task, given that the number is less than 4000

1
Even though hiring new faculty has been difficult, the IITs have been hiring many more faculty in recent years.
50

today. But if we are aggressive and continue to produce over 0.6 PhD graduates for

each faculty, it is possible to reach these numbers, as shown in Table 3.1 (the

numbers below are just an example of what can be done):

Table 3.1 : Aggressive Growth of Faculty at IITs

Faculty at IIT: Aggressive Growth by Rapidly Expanding PhD Programme

No. of
No. of No. of IIT faculty
PhD No. of PhD PhDs joining Retiring Total
students students joining as from IIT IIT
Year admitted graduating faculty outside faculty faculty
2010 4,000
2011 2,600 1,200 420 280 240 4,460
2012 3,122 1,600 560 373 223 5,170
2013 3,619 2,000 700 377 207 6,040
2014 4,530 2,400 780 420 181 7,059
2015 5,294 2,470 803 344 176 8,030
2016 6,424 2,966 890 381 201 9,100
2017 7,280 3,438 1,031 344 182 10,293
2018 8,234 4,304 1,184 395 206 11,666
2019 9,333 5,029 1,257 419 233 13,109
2020 10,487 6,103 1,221 407 262 14,475
2021 11,580 6,916 1,037 346 362 15,496
2022 12,397 7,822 978 245 387 16,332
2023 13,066 8,866 887 222 408 17,033

51

Figure 3.1 : Growth in PhD Programme

Figure 3.2 : Growth of Faculty at IITs

This assessment makes certain assumptions. These are:

(i) The number of faculty today is about 4000.

52

(ii) On an average, a PhD student takes 4 years to complete his/her programme.

95% of those admitted would get their degree (5% drop out).

(iii) PhD graduation in the next 4 years is assumed to be 1200, 1600, 2000 and

2400; after that, 95% of those admitted 4 years ago, will graduate.

(iv) The IITs today are aggressive in admitting PhD students. It has been

assumed that the IITs will admit 0.65 PhD students for each faculty member

in 2012, which will grow to 0.8 PhD students per faculty by 2016. Individual

IITs may admit more.

(v) It is expected that larger numbers would join industry as they will start

paying higher salaries once they recognize the importance of in-house R&D.

Thus, the percentage of graduating PhDs joining the IITs as faculty will

initially be high (35%), as the newer IITs have to build their faculty strength.

But it will drop to 25% in a few years (30% by 2016 and 25% by 2019); that

is, by the time PhD students from industry and other institutes start

graduating. The number will fall further to 20% and even 10% as the IITs

reach closer to 16,000 faculty numbers.

(vi) The percentage of faculty who come from outside the IIT system is initially

high (40% faculty intake will initially come from this category) as the

number of IIT PhD graduates are now low. But it will go down to 20% in

about 10 years’ time.

(vii) With these assumptions, one can reach close to 16,000 faculty by 2022 and

10,000 PhD students admitted by 2020. Even with marginal changes in these

assumptions, it is indeed possible to come up with a plan to achieve the

target numbers.

(viii) Retiring faculty is high in the beginning (as high as 6%); it will drop to 1.5%

in about 5 years’ time. This is because a number of senior faculties at the

53

IITs are likely to retire in the coming years. But with young faculty joining

thereby forming a large base, the number of those retiring is going to go

down in some years. It will again rise to 2.5% by 2025.

3.2 Where will the PhD students come from?
The next obvious question is, where would this large number of PhD intakes

come from? Today, the IITs struggle to get quality intakes for their PhD

programme and the number of joinees is rather inadequate. To enable a much

larger number of PhD intakes (10,000 per year), the Committee suggests that the

IITs consider three largely untapped streams for intake, besides the current one.

These would include:

a) Admitting bright undergraduate (UG) students for PhD at the end of their 3rd

year undergraduate engineering programme from any institute in India. The

IITs would have to take up a programme to identify such students purely on

the basis of their academic performance of the past 3 years, recommendations

from their teachers and evaluation of their research potential as identified

through an interview (conducted by the IITs). Once identified, these students

would be admitted immediately in an IIT and would complete their B.Tech

programme as well as their PhD in about 5 years’ time. The UG degree could be

awarded by the institute they came from and the PhD in due course by IIT. The

IITs should aim to take 2500 such youngsters for PhD programmes from this

stream every year.

b) Teachers from other institutes in India joining an IIT for PhD. The programme

is to be somewhat similar to the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) of

yesteryears. Appropriately rechristened, the programme should be supported

by MHRD by partially paying their salary in addition to tuition fee for the 3
54

years that they would spend at an IIT. With over 3000 engineering institutions

in the country, it should be possible for the IITs to admit 2500 such teachers

every year for PhD.

c) Attracting youngsters working in industry to join part-time PhD programmes.

While the provision for such admissions exists, it has to be further liberalized;

for example, these youngsters could take up their course-work on video, even

while they are at the industry. Their one-semester mandatory stay at IIT could

follow while they take up their research work. The IITs have to strive to get

2500 youngsters from industry every year for their PhD programme.

Each of these three streams would require some action by the IITs; they

would not get the numbers by simply waiting for students to come. The IITs have

to take upon themselves to attract students. If each of these three streams ensures

2500 intakes each year and another 2500 come through the existing channels, it

should be possible for the IITs to attract 10,000 PhD students every year.

Incentives to attract students to do PhD and later join the IIT system as faculty, as

discussed later, should help the process.

3.2.1 Undergraduate Students and Student–Teacher Ratio
To sustain such a large PhD programme, we need a large UG programme of

high quality as a feeder. Later in the report we will discuss the strategies the IITs

need to adopt to facilitate this in institutions other than IITs. The IITs have always

aimed to maintain a student: teacher ratio of 10:1, considering that it would be a

research institution. They have also always strived to have a PG : UG ratio slightly

exceeding 1:1. The Committee feels that these are the correct numbers to pursue.

Undergraduate education in an environment of high-level research and search for
55

solutions of importance to industry and national development is an important

feature. The IITs are the only institutions that have done this on a large scale so

far. Thus, continuing with UG programmes at the IITs is important. With 16,000

faculties across 20 IITs, the total number of students would work out to 160,000.

With the PhD programme outlined above, the number of PhD students would be

roughly two-and–a-half times the number of faculty, or 40,000. Other PG students

(Masters level) could account for another 40,000 and UG students could be

80,000. This would give a PG: UG ratio of 1:1. It is recognized that some IITs may

have more PG than UG students but, overall, the IITs could strive to have 80,000

UG students thereby ensuring an intake of 20,000 per year. The numbers will

stack up as follows:

(i) Faculty: 16,000

(ii) PhD students: 40,000 (10,000 admitted each year)

(iii) Masters level students: 40,000

(iv) UG students: 80,000 (20,000 admitted each year)

Such numbers at the IITs would not only make them into research

institutions, but also contribute significantly towards enhancing the national

strength of India in terms of academic pool, engineering research as well as

technological capability. This would also lead to major improvement in the quality

of other engineering institutions in the country.

56

3.3 Diversity on Campus
Several measures taken in the past have made education at the IITs fairly

inclusive for socially underprivileged classes and today they constitute 49.5% of

the student population in an IIT. This inclusiveness has however not extended to

women. In 2010, only 12% of those who qualified in the Joint Entrance

examination (JEE) were women. This was a mere 6% just 5 years ago in 2005. JEE

data reveals that the percentage of women appearing for the examination is itself

low. In 2010, only 25% of those who appeared for JEE were women (this was 15%

in 2005). While the success rate in JEE is 3% for men, it is only 1% for women.

National data shows that among those who earned degrees in
[2]
engineering/technology in 2005, women constituted 21% and this percentage

must have increased over the past 6 years. The low percentage of women in the

UG community in IITs has perhaps to do with coaching that underlines success in

JEE. Intensive coaching that often demands long hours away from home (or even

days away from one’s home town) at an early age, can often be a deterrent for

women aspirants.

Measures that will encourage women to seek entry into IITs are hence

considered essential and the following recommendations are made towards

achieving this.

 When there is a tie in total marks in JEE, the rank is decided by marks in

individual subjects. It is recommended that whenever there is a tie in total

2
‘Educational Statistics at a Glance 2005–2006’, MHRD, Department of Higher Education, 2008.

57

marks, women may be ranked higher than men. Individual subject marks may

then be used to rank within men and women as before. This will help women

get better choices of branch. Also, some more women at the bottom of the

merit list may benefit from such a system.

 Women, who get admitted and are required to pay a fee, may be reimbursed

50% of the fee amount by the Government.

3.4 Research Infrastructure
To support such a large research programme, we need considerable

augmentation of research infrastructure at the IITs. Further, such a research

environment should be broad based, covering several aspects such as research to

push the frontiers of knowledge, research to address the challenges in science, and

development as well as research to meet the needs of national technology

development and industry. The IITs are already in the mode of taking up large

programmes involving several disciplines and research groups drawn across all

institutions (IITs, NITs, IISERs, IISc, etc.) to address certain key national

challenges. The Committee recommends further augmentation of this trend over

and above the expanded research activity through research projects brought in by

the expanded faculty. Other aspects of augmentation of the research infrastructure

at IITs are discussed in the following sections.

3.5 Technology Leadership
(i) Each IIT should aim to acquire technology leadership in at least 3 or 4 areas.

To be world-class universities, the IITs should strive to be among the best

institutes in some discipline(s). No university can be uniformly good in all

areas. At least to begin with, it has to excel in any one area. The IITs should
58

put in place a system which allows, enables, encourages and supports it to start

excelling in areas that it can. The aim should be that within 7 to 10 years, each

IIT should be among the best universities in at least 3 or 4 areas.

(ii) There has to be a conscious effort to attain leadership as this does not happen

automatically. World-class excellence is not acquired by simply choosing

some areas and allocating funds. The IIT system has to consciously allow areas

it excels in, to forge ahead. It has to be done at the department levels as well as

at the institute level. The simple representative system in committees would

not encourage select areas to get ahead, but will act as a leveller.

(iii) As the IITs attempt to recruit the best faculty in each area,

i. They have to watch in what areas faculty members are excelling

ii. Where natural groups are being formed (one cannot become the best in

technology today without a sizeable group of faculty members and

research scholars from multiple disciplines working together)

iii. Where they are able to attract national and/or international attention and

acquire funds, attract fresh talent from India and abroad and where they

are able to collaborate with industry and make a difference there. As such,

areas and groups are identified; institutes need to pay special attention to

the area and the group. They need to provide more internal funding and

space and make special efforts to hire more faculty members and research

scholars in the area. Only at this stage do the IITs need to declare these as

special or core areas. These areas need to emerge in a competitive manner

(high peer interest in emerging frontline areas, attracting external research

funding, strong interest among young talent, recommendations of

institution/department review, stakeholder interest in frontline research,

etc.) and not identified by some internal committee/director. Such groups
59

should be funded to their maximum absorptive capacity. The IITs have to

then protect these groups from committees and departments that may

discourage them and sometimes resent the special attention paid to such

specific areas and groups.

iv. At the national level, such groups need to be identified, promoted and

challenged to do more. The Department of Science and Technology and

other ministries need to provide higher funding and use such groups to do

more. Industrial collaborations in such areas need to be taken to new

heights.

3.6 Industry Interaction
Encouraging industry to set up their research labs at IITs Indian industry has

been changing rapidly in the last 10 to 15 years. Today they want to become the

world’s best. Unlike in yesteryears when they depended entirely on import of

technology, today Indian industry recognizes the necessity to carry out and

participate in R&D to master their technology. Unfortunately, they have little

understanding or experience in conducting research, though they may have

acquired the ability to indigenize and productize technologies.

The IITs, on the other hand, have shown over the last 50 years to be islands

of excellence in India. They have built an academic and research culture par

excellence, untouched by many ills of the society around. They however have had

limited experience in working with industry.

The IITs and industry form a perfect complement to each other in such a

situation. They however do not understand each other. Living in their own world,

they do not communicate and hold on to the opinion that the other is of little

good. IIT faculty would often say that if only Indian industry was like that in the
60

West, they would have had no difficulty. Industry, on the other hand, believes that

the academia in the West would deliver and are more willing for tie-ups with

industry and fund them generously. It is imperative that both of them break this

logjam.

IIT Madras recently created an IITM Research Park (IITMRP) to overcome

this problem. They helped create an infrastructure just outside IITM for industry

to set up their R&D facilities. In many ways, it is just like any other infrastructure

which would house R&D centres of companies. But situated at the boundary of

IIT (with a proposed flyover providing a connected campus), this has one

difference. One of the conditions for setting up their research laboratory in this

Park is that they must collaborate with IITM. In fact, IITM has evolved a measure

of this proposed collaboration in the form of credits earned by industry for every

interaction and require that industry acquire a minimum number of credits for

each square feet of area that they occupy at the Research Park. Having placed

industrial R&D and faculty (and students) on a connected campus and creating an

obligation for industry to collaborate with IIT, would soon begin breaking the

logjam discussed above.

In other words, it is highly desirable that industries set up their R&D labs on

campus (or adjacent to campuses). Industry will benefit immensely from such an

arrangement. This will help them get acquainted with the faculty and research

scholars and understand their expertise and abilities. Using them for their R&D

activities would then be only a matter of time. They would be able to train their

research personnel with short-term courses, and part-time MS and PhD

programmes offered by the IITs. They would also be able to identify bright

youngsters to hire and involve students on a part-time basis in their research.

They would be in position to create an industry–academia consortium to

61

influence policies where required, make contributions and influence the standards

and bid for larger projects. At the same time, they would be in a position to

quickly learn the basics of research and tap the IITs to learn about the latest

research going on anywhere in the world. As the IITs have multiple departments,

industrial research could leverage their cross-disciplinary expertise.

For IITs and faculty, such labs would enable them to transform themselves.

To begin with, the faculty could learn the commercial aspects of the products and

services in the areas that they work on. They would be able to understand the

technical challenges faced by industry, and also analyse what it takes to make

research commercially usable and enriching, and expand their R&D. They would

also learn how to productize research. They would be able to tap experienced

personnel as part-time MS and research scholars. Besides, together with industry,

it could set up on campus (or adjacent to campus) research facilities they would

not have dreamt of setting up alone. They would jointly be able to attract larger

government funds in addition to getting funding from industry. It would help to

know that China has around 300 research parks, and, in Sweden 56 science parks

and incubators host around 4500 companies.

3.7 Interaction With Government Agencies
Encouraging and enabling various government departments and ministries to

set up R&D labs at IITs Most government departments and ministries (for

example Power, Railways, Airlines, Surface Transport, Mines and Minerals,

Communications, Alternative Energy, Coal, Oil and Gas, Industries and others)

do not spend much on R&D. They need to spend a minimum of 2% of their total

budget on R&D and help create and develop technologies which could transform

their respective sectors. As India continues to grow, it is important that
62

government departments use R&D to push industry to higher technological

capabilities in their respective sectors.

The problem is that most ministries know little about R&D and would not

know where to begin. The R&D culture in many ways is an anti-thesis of the

bureaucratic culture. While the latter may be useful for governance, control and

management, R&D in such a framework will be a non-starter. The IITs, on the

other hand, have created an R&D culture at their institutes and know what it takes

to pursue excellence. It will be highly desirable if each ministry sets up its R&D

labs at one or more IITs. Procedures would have to be evolved so that while a

board chosen by a government ministry (which includes IIT and laboratory

representation) defines the broad objectives and budget and approves specific

projects proposed by the lab, the governance issues, research leadership and

detailed programme development comes from within the lab and IIT. It would be

also advisable that the ministries then encourage industries in their sectors to set

up their R&D labs around such government R&D labs.

One of the purposes of these labs set up by various ministries would be to

stay on top of the state of art in its sector. It would identify how India could

acquire strategic advantage and define the technologies it needs to develop and

acquire in the years to come. Working with industries in its sector, it would learn

to take technology from lab prototypes to products and make them commercially

viable. It would identify the role that technology could play in taking its industries

to a commercially advantageous situation.

For the IITs, these labs would be a great boon. Besides bringing in funds,

equipment and industrial contacts, it would enable their research to become more

industry focused. Their research scholars and students would gain a lot by

working in such labs, complementing their theoretical knowledge with practice. In

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this context, the development of Chinese capability in High Temperature Reactor

offers a good example. The programme was visualized and developed in Tshingua

University as a technology need of the future. Today, the entire national

technological capability in this area of high future potential is with the University,

including a small operating nuclear power reactor based on this technology.

Internationally, it is now recognized that this would be one of the key technologies

to support sustainable carbon dioxide-free fluid fuel supply in the future.

3.8 Executive M.Tech Programme for Industry
Industry in India employs a large proportion of the half a million engineers

graduating every year in India. As many of them are not adequately trained,

industry spends significant time and effort to train them. But as industry becomes

increasingly stronger, it feels the need for their employees to acquire a higher

academic degree while still working. The opportunity to acquire higher

qualification is a strong motivation for employees and helps in reducing turnover

with professionals focusing on specific areas of specialization. One critical

constraint is that the employees cannot spend any significant residency period at

the IITs or other institutes. The entire programme has to be based on online

interaction, and supervision of projects, etc. by qualified mentors at their

workplaces. The pace at which an employee goes through the programme has to

be variable, depending on the employee’s abilities and workload at different times.

As such, the constraints imposed by the course structure/schedule must be as few

as possible. Despite these constraints, the programme must be innovative and

create degrees with high intrinsic and brand value.

It is suggested that a new degree, called Executive M.Tech degree, be created

to distinguish it from the existing residency based M.Tech programme. An
64

Executive M.Tech degree from an IIT would however be considered equivalent to

its regular M.Tech programme for admission to IIT’s PhD programme, if

necessary with some specifications on additional preparation. Many leading

universities adopt such an approach.

The Executive M.Tech (EMT) programme will consist entirely of online

(live video lectures and web-based assignment/examination) courses offered in the

evenings or on weekends, and a project supervised entirely by a qualified mentor

at the workplace. The courses will be taught by IIT faculty and the evaluations will

also be done by them. There will be no evaluation of the assignments that may be

given. The course may have some discussion sessions for assignments. Solutions

may be uploaded by the teacher. The student will not be required to visit any IIT

for either attending courses or taking exams. There will be no lab courses (except

where off-site labs can be accessed using virtual labs). The project will also be

evaluated by IIT faculty. First, the proposal will be evaluated and approved, and

then the thesis and student will be evaluated. The student will be physically

present for the viva. It is also possible to include at this time a breadth-oriented

comprehensive viva based on the courses taken. This viva evaluation could be

done only for the purpose of feedback to the employer on the degree of

transformation that has occurred in him/her. It could also be given credits if

desired.

The project is a very important component of postgraduate education in the

IIT system. While online courses and absence of labs enable the programme to

scale, it is equally important to make the projects locally supervised without IIT

faculty co-supervisors for scaling to happen. In order to ensure that the potential

supervisor, employer and student clearly understand what is expected, a detailed

document will be provided that will explain (i) the types of projects (analytical,

65

simulation, modelling, experimental, prototype development, research oriented),

(ii) the amount of work expected, (iii) the quality of literature, survey and

reporting on the thesis, and (iv) sanity checks on the experimental and simulation

results expected. IPR issues will be also be dealt with. Sample theses representing

the different types and quantum of work that is acceptable, will also be provided.

Project evaluation will be done by an independent faculty committee. If

desired, an interim evaluation can also be obtained by a committee member based

on a video-conference presentation in order to ensure the project is on the right

track. This evaluation will be informal and not count for the final grade.

Two operational modes are possible for the programme with each IIT

having its own or a common programme jointly operated by the IITs. The latter

may have difficulties associated with Senate jurisdiction and awarding of a degree.

The former may work quite well for the established IITs and may even lead to

healthy competition, but the newer IITs may be required to partner with their

erstwhile mentors for some time. Further, to give the students the maximum

possible latitude in taking courses at times when their workload is less, we may

need to allow a student to register for a course offered by a sister IIT, maybe up to

a maximum of 50% of the total credits. At the end of the course, the course grade

will be transferred to the IIT with which the student is registered.

It is possible to scale up to 10,000 Executive M.Tech graduates every year.

The programme could be initially started in 4 or 5 areas and more specializations

may be added over time. The programme could also contribute significantly to the

finances of the IITs as each M.Tech programme could be charged Rs 5–7 lakh.

More details and rationale of the suggested programme is given in Appendix

IV.

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3.9 International/Foreign Students and Faculty
For research and innovation to flourish, we need to nurture an environment

where plenty of new ideas can emerge and where there is competition even for the

best performers. It is also important that the research culture is maintained at its

best. Continuous exposure and exchange with external high-level research

environs is thus important to maintain research at the frontiers of knowledge. We

should thus welcome high-quality international presence in our academic and

research institutions. There is however some difference between conditions

prevailing here and those in the West. While we need to create wider access for

our own people to higher education, in the West there is a serious shortage of local

people to meet their national programme needs and they need to get bright minds

to come from outside. Even so, a selective presence of external high-level intellect

in our institutions must be encouraged. A recent decision of the IIT Council to

facilitate limited presence of foreign faculty and students in the IITs is thus a

welcome move.

Ten percent faculty and 20% graduate students could be overseas students.

The IITs have to evolve into global education institutions and become a larger part

of the global knowledge network by welcoming a sizable number of overseas

faculty and students. This has strategic advantages for India as it enhances India’s

soft power globally.

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Governance, Autonomy and Finances

4.1 Context
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are premier technical education

institutions in India. They have been set up at various times as Societies with their

own Boards. By The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, the existing Societies have

been legally converted into a body corporate, having perpetual succession and a

common seal. The Act lays down their powers and obligations and is reasonably

well constructed, giving the IITs a high degree of autonomy in their own

governance. The Act also set up the Council of IITs to coordinate the activities of

all the Institutes so that there is commonality in many matters and to act as an

interface between the Government and the IITs. The Council has the right to

advise on general policy matters as well as lay down policy regarding employment

terms and also examine and recommend to the Central government the allocation

of funds for them.

However, the Act is contextual and written in the social context of the 1960s.

Today there is a need to re-examine the governance and funding model to give the

IITs a much greater degree of freedom in their own management to enable them

to be flexible, respond to the economic environment faster, develop their own

compensation and incentive plans and invest in identified areas. Being largely

funded by the Government, the IITs are subjected to government spending

regulations and government audit. The IITs’ ability to invest is also constrained by

the spending curbs of the Government. This has put the IITs at a disadvantage

when compared to many reputed universities around the world which have full

financial autonomy.
71

Largely funded by the Government out of public funds, the IITs’ own

sources of funds are limited to about 18% of their operating revenues. In addition,

the fee component today amounts to a small percentage of the total expenses.

Their infrastructure requirements are met wholly by the Government. The IITs

enjoy a very great degree of academic autonomy but not the required level of

administrative or financial autonomy as they are dependent on funds from the

Government.

The Board of Governors of an IIT has substantial powers of governance and

is responsible for the general superintendence, direction and control of the affairs

of the Institute and exercises all the powers of the Institute not otherwise provided

in the Act. It also has the power to review the actions of the Senate. The Board has

the power to take decisions on questions of policy, make statutes, institute courses

of study and make appointments to academic as well as other posts and the

authority to realize the objectives of the Act, which are indeed very broad. The

Chairman is nominated by the President of India, who is the Visitor, and the

Board consists of persons nominated by the Government and the Council. As the

Council is dominated by the Government, once again there is control on the

composition of the Board by the Government. Once appointed, the Board has

substantial powers excepting on financial matters, but it does not have the power

to appoint independent members. The term of the members of the Board is

normally 3 years. The Director of the Institute is appointed directly by the

Government and not by the Board. There is a need to have a more transparent

method of appointing the Chairman and Members of the Board as it is possible

that the composition of the Board can reflect the preferences of the Government

of the day and not necessarily the objectives of the Act.

72

The Government has expressed a desire to make the IITs more autonomous

so that they evolve into Institutions of global excellence. The IIT management also

feels they require more autonomy, especially in matters of finance and

governance, to help realize their potential. Very often, generic instructions to curb

non-productive expenditure in the Government, Government norms for spending

and restrictive procedures that prevent innovations in management and

governance, determine the limitations on the directions that IITs can take. Also,

being funded almost primarily by the Government, they are considered as the

“State” for legal purposes, which impose further responsibilities on them.

Autonomy can only be ensured when the IITs can meet their financial needs

substantially.

4.2 Financial Autonomy
The root of the autonomy challenge lies in the inability of the IITs to be

financially independent. Below is the snapshot of sources of revenues of 7

established IITs. These are IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT

Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati and IIT Roorkee.

The total operating revenues of the 7 established IITs was Rs. 942 crore in

2009 and Rs. 1283 crore for 2010. These figures have been extracted from the

financial statements submitted by the IITs for these years.

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Table 4.1 : Operating Revenues of Seven Established IITs

2009 2010
Actuals Actuals
Income (in Rs. (in Rs.
crore) crore)
Student Fee 68 97

Government Receipts* 775 1,050
Investments receipt 29 34
Others 70 102
Grand Total 942 1,283
*Note: Government receipts are adjusted with

surplus/deficit of previous years.

Funding for an IIT comes from the following sources:

a. Plan grants from the Government: The Plan grant or Capital Grant covers the

cost of buildings, laboratories, libraries and other infrastructure. These funds

are used for non-recurring or capital expenditure. These are not accounted for

in the operating revenues but are separately accounted.

b. Non-Plan grants from the Government: The Non-Plan grant or Operations

Grant covers operational expenses such as salaries, retirement benefits, estate

maintenance, etc. Operational grants make up for about 82% of operating

revenues for the IITs. These are disclosed as government receipts.

c. Tuition fee: Tuition fee is earnings from the Undergraduate, Masters and PhD

programmes. Tuition fee contributes, on an average, about 7% of the operating

revenues for established IITs.

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d. Investments and endowment income: The return on endowments and

investments, and donations from alumni is about 3% of the operating revenues

for established IITs as against 10–40% for top US universities.

e. Others/revenue from auxiliary enterprises and sales/services of educational

activities: This source of revenue includes income from royalty, publications,

seminars, workshops, sponsorships, examination fees, consultancy, and so on.

It is evident from the above that about 82% of all operational expenses and

all capital expenditure comes from the Government. Without attaining financial

independence, true autonomy will not be a reality. For this purpose, a financial

strategy is essential to ensure that the IITs are eventually able to fund their

operations fully and also part of their infrastructure needs. Till such time,

Government grants to new and established IITs would be necessary.

It would take some time for the IITs to reach this stage. However, this is

possible if conditions conducive to reaching such a goal are created. In fact,

making them autonomous should facilitate greater non-governmental financial

inputs into the IITs. Towards the objective of taking IITs to the level of world-

class institutions, it is recommended that the IITs become independent of any

non-plan (operational) budgetary support of the Government except the legacy of

pension commitments.3 Instead, a substantially enhanced support through plan

3
Faculty and Staff hired after 1 January 2004 are under the new pension scheme which is funded from monthly contributions
from the staff and the Institute which the Government or Institute would not have to support when the staff retires. Provision for
pension is made in the yearly expenses and money transferred. However, staff hired before 1 January 2004 are under the old
pension scheme, where the Institute/ Government would provide pension money each year after the staff has retired. It is
proposed that since this is a legacy expense, the Government should continue to support it, till it expires.

75

(capital) funds is recommended to augment research and institutional

infrastructure and support to research students in tune with the proposed scaling

up. The key recommendations are discussed in the following sections.

4.3 Key Recommendations on Fee and Scholarship
1. We recommend that the IITs become financially independent of non-plan

(operational) budgetary support to meet their operating expenditure, while

the capital, student scholarships and support and infrastructure expenditure

continue to be met fully under plan (capital) budget support by the

Government.

2. To achieve the above, we recommend that the IITs recover the recurring

part of the cost of education through fees levied on undergraduate (B.Tech)

and postgraduate (Dual degree/M.Tech/MS/PhD) education. This will not

recover the full cost of education as the capital cost will be borne fully by the

Government. The fees will cover a substantial part of the annual recurring

costs.

3. For the established IITs, assuming the faculty : student ratio to be 1:11, for

modeling purpose, the break-even point is between Rs. 2-2.5

lakh/student/annum levied across UG, Masters and PhD programmes based

on the current expenditure and student intake pattern. Our recommended

fee for UG, Masters and PhD is therefore of the order of Rs. 2–2.5 lakh per

annum. This excludes the cost of hostels and living costs for the students.

Given that different IITs have different programmes and different cost

structures, the fees may vary across the IITs. These cost estimates are based

on the financial statements submitted by the IITs and may need to change

76

based on the timing of the decision on fees being taken by the Government

and other factors.

For the UG programme, students would pay the recommended fee of Rs. 2–

2.5 lakh per annum. This will take care of the recurring cost of education but

will not take care of the total cost of education as the capital costs are funded

fully by the Government and act as an implicit subsidy. The capital

investment per student is estimated at Rs. 20 lakh, as discussed in the section

“Key recommendations on grants for Infrastructure”. At 12% interest and

amortization in 10 years, the per capita costs will amount to nearly Rs. 3.50

lakh per year. In addition, we recommend, a yearly capital grant of Rs. 1.5

lakh per student for normal capital expenditure. Along with yearly inflation,

all this will take the total cost of education to Rs. 7.5–8 lakh per student per

year. It may be noted that the average salary of an IIT graduate is more than

Rs 6 lakh per annum, as evidenced by the salary offered during placement

across the IITs. Therefore, charging Rs. 2–2.5 lakh per annum as fees is

justifiable on grounds of the earning potential of an IIT graduate who is

today highly prized by industry. It may be noted that the recommended fee

is not covering the total cost of education, but only about 30% of the current

cost of education at IIT, excluding the land cost.

A special loan programme for students is recommended later which should

be easily available on admission without collateral and without the

guarantee of the guardian so that no student is deprived of education

because of want of means.

4. Each IIT Board should have the power to determine the fee structure based

upon the Institute’s needs across the years.

77

5. We recommend that a National IIT Scholarship programme be instituted to

fund student fees, as shown in Table 4.2. This will ensure that Government

spending is according to the number of students enrolling and the actual

seats utilized for reserved and socially disadvantaged groups in the UG

programme. This would also enable the IITs to scale the Masters and PhD

programmes without constraints.

Table 4.2 : Proposed Scholarship Scheme

# Category Government Funding for

Tuition Fee

1 Reserved category candidates 100% tuition fee

2 UG (parental income < Rs. 4.5 25% of total seats to be

lakh / annum) scholarship seats with 100% of

tuition fee

3 Masters 100% tuition fee for all Masters

students

4 PhD 100% of tuition fee for all PhD

students

In addition, the National Scholarship scheme should include a stipend to

cover cost of living for the scholarship holders.

For the reserved category (i.e. SC or ST only) or any socio-economically

disadvantaged group as identified by the Government (for example, students

from families with income level below Rs. 4.5 lakh per annum), the students

should receive scholarship from the Government for 100% of the fees as well as

living expenses.

78

For students of the UG programme who belong to the general category, or

from rural areas and the OBC category, the Government should continue the

merit-cum-means scholarship programme, which would now also include the

fees that they pay to the institute. All students in the above programmes, whose

annual parental income is less than Rs. 4.5 lakh (to be revised from time to

time), should be paid scholarships for 100% of the fees and a monthly stipend.

This will address the issue of social equity and also the criticism that charging

full fees by an IIT would deprive a meritorious yet poor student of high quality

education.

Thus it may be noted that at most only 52.5% students in the UG

programme will be asked to pay the full fees. This percentage could change

from year to year based on the admission of students from the socially and

economically disadvantaged sections.

We therefore recommend that only students from families with incomes

over Rs. 4.5 lakh per year and who do not belong to socially or economically

disadvantaged sections or from rural areas, be asked to pay the full fee. All

others should be able to get a full scholarship from the Government so that no

student, having passed the entry criteria, is denied an education in an IIT for

want of means.

All Masters and PhD students should receive a scholarship from the

Government for 100% of the fees as well as their stipend, determined from time

to time. This is because the PG programme is essentially a research programme

and builds intellectual capital and technological capabilities for the country.

Being strategic assets, they need to be funded by the Government. This will go a

long way to improve the quality of student intake, incentivize students to

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continue research and get their PhD degrees and meet India’s need for more

PhDs in various areas.

We recommend that the stipend payout for Masters and PhD students be

continued by the Government, as is currently being done, and can be revised

suitably from time to time.

Table 4.3 : Masters and PhD Assistantship Payout

# Program Scholarship Scholarship Contingency Overhead Total

me (Rs./month) (Rs./year) (Rs./year) (Rs./year) (Rs./year)

1 Masters 8,000 96,000 0 0 96,000

2 PhD 18,000 2,16,000 25,000 20,000 2,61,000

Source: MHRD, 2010

6. The IITs could use their own resources and alumni funds to establish some

more scholarships for meritorious students.

7. We specifically recommend that the student intake be determined by the Board

of each Institute annually so that they can enroll a right proportion of students

for both UG and PG programmes commensurate with available infrastructure.

The Government should provide an adequate number of scholarships every

year based on such intake without any reduction and also the capital

investment needed to fully fund growth in infrastructure needs.

4.4 Key recommendation on Pension Liabilities
As the IITs have to pay for legacy liabilities like pensions for their staff

which is a recurring liability, the Government should continue to pay for legacy

pensions (currently Rs. 221 crore/annum) for all employees (including faculty and

staff) till the old pension programmes for retired and existing staff run their
80

term. Today, all new appointments are made by the IITs on the basis of a fully

funded pension plan and hence there would be no future unfunded liabilities for

such appointments. The current pension payments are as shown in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4 : Government Pension for Seven Established IITs

# IIT (FY 10) Retirement Benefits (Rs.
Cr)
1 Kharagpur 51.5
2 Bombay 47.3
3 Madras 53.8
4 Kanpur 33.1
5 Delhi 22.5
6 Roorkee 12.0
7 Guwahati 0.8
Total 221.1

The retirement benefit figures are taken from the financial statements and may

vary depending on the DA and other increases from time to time.

4.5 Key Recommendations on Research and Consultancy
1. To create a world-class Research and Development capability, it is suggested

that research activities be funded from public/private sources by:

a. National Science and Engineering Research Board, DST, DBT, DRDO,

ARDB and other such funding agencies who should have adequate budgets

and make research grants for universities based upon competing proposals.

b. MHRD should increase its budget for R&D for IITs to be granted against

competing proposals. By this, education at the PG level will be research

based.
81

c. Compete for research assignments from the private sector.

2. Today, many government funding institutions do not provide sufficient

overheads for R&D projects as part of a research grant. It is recommended

that a minimum of 20% (without cap) be provided as overheads in each

grant by all government agencies including MHRD, DST, DBT, DIT and

DRDO. It is to be noted that in Europe and USA, the overheads are as high

as 50–60%.

3. For each of the new IITs, a special annual grant of Rs. 10 crore per year is

recommended for research for a period of 5 years.

4. Consultancy engagements should be encouraged to generate industry–

academic interactions and resources.

4.6 Key Recommendations on Grants for Infrastructure
1. We recommend the infrastructure and expansion costs continue to be funded

fully by MHRD in the form of Capital Grants.

2. For the 7 established IITs, the following need to be funded:

a. The current capital grant of Rs. 60–70 crore for each established IIT, used for

normal capital expenditure like expansion of labs and purchase of equipment,

needs to be increased. As the institute expands and improves research, this

would have to be increased. It is proposed that yearly capital grants to IITs be

Rs. 1.5 lakh per student. This will ensure that laboratory expansion needs are

taken care of commensurate with increase in students.

b. The current state of infrastructure at the established IITs is not in tune with

what is expected of a world-class institute. Hence, it is proposed that these

institutes be given a one-time rejuvenation budget for existing students of Rs. 5
82

lakh/student, based on the strength as of March 2011, spread over 4 years. This

will ensure that the IITs modernize their infrastructure and buy adequate

equipment for cutting edge research that is commensurate with the growth.

c. For the Oversight Committee (OSC)-related expansion programme, MHRD

had earmarked funding of Rs. 10 lakh per student. This is considered

inadequate and needs to be increased to at least Rs. 15 lakh per student.

d. As the IITs increase their number of students (as recommended in this report),

it is recommended that a sum of Rs. 20 lakh per additional student needs to be

provided towards infrastructure.

3. For the new IITs, we recommend the following (also see Appendix VII):

The autonomy argued for by this Committee requires the IITs to raise

substantial funds. The new IITs are at a serious disadvantage here. They do not

have alumni who could be a major source of donations, as in the case of

established IITs. They do not have the track record that brings in funds from

industry. Neither do they have large amounts of sponsored R&D, the overheads

of which are an important source of funds. Lacking such “unfettered” funds,

they will not be able to implement the above-mentioned measures. Hence, if

the new IITs are to realize their disruptive potential, they need the creation of

an initial endowment fund. This fund could be spent as per the norms set by

the Board of Governors, and not as per MHRD norms. It is strongly

recommended that each of the new IITs be provided with an annual grant to

the tune of Rs. 10 crore per year for the first 5 years to create such an

endowment. In addition,

a. The existing project mode of funding is to continue

b. For additional students beyond the project plan, a sum of Rs. 20 lakh per

student is to be provided

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c. Further, over time, they should reach the same yearly capital grant provision as

the existing IITs

4. The capital grant for infrastructure expansion should be given at least 30

months in advance so that the infrastructure is ready when the students arrive.

5. We recommend that all the IITs should maintain their accounts based on

common accounting principles. A common accounting manual should be

prepared so that there is commonality of accounting across the IIT system,

making accounting and audit easier and comparable and more transparent. A

full set of financial statements should be reviewed by the Board every quarter

and submitted to the Council not later than 45 days from the end of the

quarter. It is suggested that each IIT has an online computerized accounting

system on a scalable platform.

6. We recommend that the IITs create the necessary human resources to manage

their own finances. Each IIT should appoint a Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

who is a qualified Chartered Accountant (CA) or a Finance Management

Graduate (CA/MBA) along with a team to manage the financial affairs of the

IIT. Each IIT should evolve its own financial policy for spending and

authorization, as approved by the Board, to ensure proper processes. The IITs

should not be required to follow Government Financial Rules for their finances

except for capital grants received from the Government. Each IIT should

appoint a firm of CAs to act as internal auditors so that proper reporting and

controls are ensured and reported to the Board for governance. The current

structure of the IITs is not geared to manage the financial setup. The CFO is to

be part of the administrative structure of the IIT and separate from the

academic setup. S/he should report to the Audit Committee to be set up by the

Board and also to the Director to ensure independence and proper

84

accountability. Being statutory corporations established under law, the existing

Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit of the IITs would continue and

accountability ensured to Parliament.

7. The IITs should start an aggressive drive to get endowments, scholarship grants

and funds from their alumni and other donors to meet at least 10–15% of their

needs on an annual basis over time. This will ensure that the IITs benefit from

their alumni and also allow the alumni to give back substantially to the IITs.

There are over 90,000 alumni of the IITs who are leaders in society. Therefore,

it is recommended that each IIT sets up an Office of Endowment (with

appropriate staff) to gather large endowments from alumni and evolve project

plans for endowments. Most alumni would prefer to fund specific projects or

schemes because they would want to see the output of their grants. Therefore, a

basket of projects needs to be prepared to market this to the alumni. This office

shall also manage the endowment funds to ensure reasonable financial returns

and govern the entire endowment process as per the financial policy approved

by the Board and as per government norms. Over a period of time, the IITs

should get a substantial part of its revenue from returns on endowment funds

which can cover a fair part of their capital expenditure. The Office of

Endowment should report to the Director of the institute.

8. Large-scale capital investments should result in proper maintenance of campus,

infrastructure and hostels. The current maintenance methods are inadequate.

This is an aspect that needs improvement. It is recommended that well-known

facilities management companies be invited to bid for management of the

campuses and infrastructure of the IITs. This would include tasks like cleaning,

utilities management, garbage disposal, painting, minor repairs and gardening,

so as to maintain the infrastructure in very good condition. However, existing

85

staff on the payroll need to be protected with all the benefits intact, to ensure

that there is no dislocation. We recommend no further addition to permanent

IIT maintenance staff other than a management layer, which is required for

proper management of maintenance systems.

9. Students will have to pay for the full maintenance cost of hostels, including

utilities, on a “no profit no loss” basis in the form of monthly payments. This is

over and above the tuition fee. The cost of maintenance of the rest of the

campus would be borne by each IIT out of their revenues.

4.7 Income/Expenditure Statement of Established IITs for

Fiscal 2009 and 2010
The income and expenditure statement of the 7 established IITs for fiscal

2009 and 2010 has been analysed on the basis of the financial statements

submitted by them. We have created a financial model based on the existing

expenditure pattern with the new fee structure to enable assessment of the

financial impact of the new fee structure. This is only indicative and based on the

information given to the Committee by the IITs and MHRD. The actual may vary

from the above. It is suggested that decisions about the finances are taken based

on the specific condition of each IIT at the point when the decisions are taken.

86

Table 4.5 : Income/Expenditure of Established IITs for FY 2009 and FY 2010

2009 2010 2011 2011 Notes
Model
with
Actuals Actuals Estimate New fee

Student/faculty Ratio 11.4 11.0 11.0 11.0 FY09, FY10-- actual data
Student Fee Break-even is between Rs. 2 & 2.5
(Rs. lakh/annum) 2.00 lakh /annum.
Income (in Rs. crore)
Course fee collected (Fee x no. of
Student Fee 68 97 103 878 students for UG, Masters and PhD.
Government operational expenditure
Government Receipts 775 1,050 1,112 333 (pension and assistantships)
Endowment income, interest income,
Investments 29 34 35 35 return on investments, etc.
Entrance exam fee, library fee, hostel
fee collections, admin receipts,
Others 70 102 86 86 sponsorships etc. included.

Grand Total 943 1,284 1,337 1,333
Expenditure
Sharp increase in FY 10 due to
Salary 404 646 640 640 provision for Sixth Pay Commission
Estate maintenance, water,
Admin Expenses 218 298 339 339 electricity, housekeeping, etc.
Sharp increase in FY 10 due to
Retirement Benefits 137 221 223 223 provision for Sixth Pay Commission

Scholarships 99 90 110 110 Assistantships
Gym, health facilities, library,
Student Amenities 40 38 39 39 transport, subsidy, etc.

Grand Total 897 1,294 1,351 1,351

Surplus/(Deficit)
46 (10) (15) (19)

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4.7.1 Projection of PhD Students

The numbers for PhD students are taken from Chapter 3 (Table 3.1). The

net addition of PhDs, that is, number of PhD students admitted minus number of

PhD students graduating, can be derived from this table. For example, the net

addition of PhDs in FY11 is 1400; in FY12 it is 1522; in FY13 it is 1619, and so on.

Using this, the total PhDs in the system is modelled. For example, the total PhDs

in the system in FY12 is 8922, and in FY13 it is 10,541 and so on.

By 2020, the target is to achieve an admission per year of 10,000+ PhD

students with the given Faculty-to-PhD student ratio.

4.7.2 Projection of UG and Masters Students Intake
Based on PhD data, UG and Masters intake is modelled as follows:

 The in-campus strength of close to 50%:50% for UG:PG is maintained.

 Growth of student intake is assumed to be slow for the first 3 years and is

expected to acclerate later and then stablize to allow time for faculty

recuitment and infrastructure needs to come up.

 The in-campus students strength is modelled keeping the above factors to

reach approx UG=80,000, Masters=40,000 and PhD=40,000, leading to a

total of 160,000 by 2023 (or 140,000 by 2020).

 The current in-campus student strength, all including, is 45,000. This is

scaled to 140,000 in 2020.

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 The in-campus student intake is derived from from the student strength by

taking into account the graduating students. For example, UG students

graduate every 4 years and Masters students graduate every 2 years.

The table on student intake below (Table 4.6) is first modelled with total

student strength numbers for all the IITs.

Table 4.6 : Student Intake Modelling for the IIT System

Total UG Masters PhD
Grad- In Grad- In Grad- In
Intake Intake Intake Total
uating Campus uating Campus uating Campus
FY
5,619 5,000 25,000 6,015 4,500 10,000 1,200 6,000 41,000
10
FY
5,900 5,000 25,900 6,316 4,500 11,816 2,600 1,200 7,400 45,116
11
FY
6,490 5,000 27,390 6,947 6,015 14,263 3,122 1,600 9,322 50,975
12
FY
7,463 5,000 29,853 7,642 6,316 15,890 3,619 2,000 11,341 57,084
13
FY
8,583 5,619 33,436 8,406 6,947 17,981 4,530 2,400 13,871 65,288
14
FY
9,870 5,900 37,688 8,827 7,642 19,860 5,294 2,470 16,765 74,313
15
FY
11,351 6,490 43,139 9,268 8,406 21,486 6,424 2,966 20,719 85,343
16
FY
13,054 7,463 49,702 9,731 8,827 22,811 7,280 3,438 25,033 97,546
17
FY
15,012 8,583 57,251 10,218 9,268 24,202 8,234 4,304 29,829 111,282
18
FY
16,513 9,870 65,180 10,729 9,731 25,663 9,333 5,029 34,858 125,701
19
FY
18,164 11,351 71,994 11,265 10,218 26,710 10,487 6,103 40,316 139,020
20

Table 4.7 below is then modelled for student strength in the 7 established IITs

with 60% of the overall student strength.

89

Table 4.7 : Student Intake Modelling for the Seven Established IITs

Estab.
UG UG UG Masters Masters Masters PhD PhD PhD
IITs
In- Graduat In Graduat In Graduat In UG Masters PhD
Intake Intake Total
take -ing Campus -ing Campus -ing Campus % % %
FY 10 4,754 5,000 25,000 5,921 4,500 10,000 1,200 6,000 41,000
FY 11 4,903 5,000 24,903 6,246 4,500 11,746 2,461 1,200 7,261 43,910 57 27 17
FY 12 5,094 5,000 24,997 6,825 5,921 14,071 2,914 1,600 8,975 48,042 52 29 19
FY 13 5,509 5,000 25,506 7,428 6,246 15,577 3,306 2,000 10,681 51,764 49 30 21
FY 14 5,847 4,754 26,354 8,042 6,825 17,373 4,061 2,400 12,742 56,469 47 31 23
FY 15 6,587 4,903 28,187 8,189 7,428 18,737 4,590 2,331 14,932 61,856 46 30 24
FY 16 7,411 5,094 30,696 8,152 8,042 19,461 5,368 2,758 17,969 68,126 45 29 26
FY 17 8,326 5,509 33,928 7,778 8,189 19,198 5,739 3,125 20,951 74,076 46 26 28
FY 18 9,339 5,847 37,757 7,190 8,152 18,199 5,984 3,835 23,810 79,766 47 23 30

Table 4.8 gives a snapshot of the financial aspects related to the future

growth of established IITs, based on the recommended numbers given in Table

4.7. However, we need to recognize that the actual situation would depend on the

growth of existing IITs, new IITs, and IITs to be set up. This is just to assess the

viability based on the new financial model and the actuals may vary from the

estimate.

We have attempted a detailed financial model for FY 12 to FY 14 as per our

recommended structure, which is depicted below in Table 4.8. In order to

understand the impact of our recommendations and the new fee structure, a

detailed model is presented as well in the annexures.

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Table 4.8 : Income/Expenditure of Established IITs for FY 2012 Onwards

FY 2012 2013 2014 2015
Assumptions
Student Intake Notes
Student intake till 2011 from
UG 5,094 5,509 5,847 6,587 MHRD, rest projected
Projection of student intake in line
Masters 6,825 7,428 8,042 8,189 with expected scaling up of IITs
UG:Masters:PhD In campus ratio
PhD 2,914 3,306 4,061 4,590 of 50:25:25 maintained

In-Campus Strength
Student intake X 4 Years = In-
UG 24,997 25,506 26,354 28,187 campus Strength
Masters 14,071 15,577 17,373 18,737 campus Strength
PhD 8,975 10,681 12,742 14,932 campus Strength
Total 48,042 51,764 56,469 61,856
Student/Faculty Ratio 11.0 11.0 11.0 11.0
Student Fee (Rs. Break-even is between Rs. 2 and
lakh/annum) 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.5 lakh/annum
Addl Faculty Cost (Rs. Cost structure assumed for
lakh/annum) 12 12 12 12 additional faculty
Income
Partially funded by Government
and rest from students, break-up
Total Fee Collection* 961 1,035 1,129 1,237 given below
Government Receipts: Pension liability assumed to
Pension 246 270 297 327 increase 10%YoY
Assistantships 135 150 167 180 As per student numbers
Investments 36 37 38 39
Other Income assumed to increase
Others 110 121 133 146 10%YoY
Grand Total 1,488 1,613 1,764 1,929
Expenditure
Salary increase at 10%. Projected
based on addl fac. required to
Salary 748 864 1,001 1,160 maintain stud: fac. ratio.
Administrative
Expenses 373 411 452 497 Assumed to increase 10% YoY
Retirement Benefits 246 270 297 327 Assumed to increase 10% YoY
Assistantship 135 150 167 180 As per student numbers for 7 IITs
Student Amenities 42 47 51 56 Assumed to increase 10% YoY
Grand Total 1,545 1,741 1,968 2,220

Deficit/Surplus (57) (128) (204) (291)

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Deficit/Surplus (Rs.
2.25 lakh / student /
annum) 63 2 (63) (136)
Deficit/Surplus (Rs.
2.5 lakh / student /
annum) 183 131 79 18

As per the above-mentioned financial model, government funding would

be through scholarships on a per student basis rather than on an operational grant

to IIT. This would need to progressively increase to account for increase in

student intake and inflation.

Table 4.9 shows fee collection from students and government scholarships

estimated for modelling purposes for the 7 established IITs.

Table 4.9: Estimated Fee Collection from Students and Government Grants

Fee at R.s 2 lakh/ All

amount

in Rs. Cr 2012 2013 2014 2015

Government Pension 246 270 297 327

Assistantships 135 150 167 180

(i) Students share of the

fees 385 393 406 434

(ii) Scholarships as fees 576 642 724 803

Total Fees 961 1,035 1,129 1,237

Total Government grant

(Pension+ Scholarship +

Assistantship) 957 1,062 1,187 1,310

92

We expect the Government to also cover the cost of living of some students as

done today.

4.8 Introduction of Special Loan Schemes
There is a need for the Government to work with the banking system to

create a special loan scheme to enable students to pay their fees, as is the system in

many countries.

1. As the increase in fees would increase funding requirements for students, a

special loan programme for students is recommended, which should be easily

available without collateral. We had approached the State Bank of India (SBI)

to evolve this loan programme for IIT students. The suggested draft terms are

detailed in Appendix V. This shall ensure that no student is deprived of

education for want of money. Students will have access to scholarships and easy

availability of loans from Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as a part of the admission

process itself.

2. It may be noted that the Government has evolved a special Educational Loan

Scheme with the Indian Banks’ Association (Appendix VI) to pursue

Technical/Professional courses in India. Under this Central Scheme, the

interest payable by students belonging to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS

- gross parental income of less than Rs 4.5 lakh/annum) for availing the

Educational Loan for Technical/Professional Courses in India for the period of

moratorium (i.e., Course Period plus one year or 6 months after getting a job,

whichever is earlier), as prescribed.

3. Under the Educational Loan Scheme by the Indian Banks’ Association, the

interest shall be borne by the Government of India. After the period of

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moratorium is over, the interest on the outstanding loan amount shall be paid

by the student along with the principal.

4. In order to incentivize students of an IIT pursuing postgraduate programmes

in the IIT system, the period of moratorium should be extended for the

duration of such PG programmes being pursued by them at an IIT. Also, under

the scheme, the interest during such moratorium should be paid by the

Government. This will incentivize UGs to pursue PG education in the IIT

system. We recommend that this should be a part of the scholarship scheme

and should extend to the entire course of study after the UG stage.

5. For those who join an IIT or a NIT as a faculty or join some key areas as

identified by the Government after completion of their studies in an IIT, the

respective institutions/PSUs/government departments should repay the loan

on their behalf on a proportionate basis for the number of years they continue

serving with them. This will incentivize the PhDs to join PSUs or government

institutions.

4.9 Administrative Autonomy
Along with financial autonomy, there is a need for greater accountability of

the IITs to the Government and the taxpayers who have funded the establishment

of the IITs. Today, accountability is ensured by the fact that the Government

appoints the entire Board of the IITs as well as IITs’ Directors and dominates the

Council and that the Government funds over 80% of the financial needs of the

IITs and their entire capital costs. Autonomy and Accountability are two sides of

the same coin. Accountability is also ensured today by governmental audit and the

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fact that the accounts of every IIT is to be audited by the CAG and laid before each

House of Parliament.

The IITs enjoy academic autonomy. Hence, the challenge to a greater degree

of autonomy is financial and administrative, and not academic. Financial

autonomy can be achieved by the means explained above and for administrative

autonomy the following is suggested.

1. Each IIT enters into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with MHRD

on an annual basis with due approval of the IIT Council. The MOU will

include: (i) the academic accomplishments of the Institute, including the

research and technological outputs, (ii) the number of students to be

admitted in various categories, (iii) the quantum and number of

scholarships and assistantships to be provided by the Central government

for UG, Masters and PhD students, (iv) support to students from scheduled

categories and those with weaker economic background, (v) incentives to

students to get into research and teaching, and (vi) the quantum of support

from the Central government for pension payments, capital expenditure,

research and such other matters as mutually decided.

2. The MOU will state the obligations of the Government to the IITs in

providing funds for research, scholarships for their students, infrastructure

and funds for legacy obligations such as pensions for retired staff and the

commitment of the IITs for outcome.

3. The Board will have full freedom under the MOU to decide the structure

and quantum of fees, the compensation policy for its employees, the service

conditions for its employees, etc. based on the general guidelines given by

the IIT Council to ensure some uniformity. The Board will have full

authority over its own budget and not be bound by the Government’s

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financial rules for expenditure but be bound by its own published norms.

The Board will be the final authority on its expenditure pattern. However,

the Board will abide by Government norms for the capital grants given by

the Government.

4. The Board will also have the authority to appoint the Director of an IIT

using an open, transparent search and selection mechanism. Currently,

under Section 25 (a) of the IIT Act, 1961, the power of appointing the

Director rests with the Government. The contractual obligations of the

Director will be decided by the Board. The Director will be responsible and

accountable to the Board. The Director will have a term of 5 years at a time,

subject to re-appointment and retirement. The Director shall not be

removable from the post, except with 3/4th majority of the Board, unless

he/she has committed an act of moral turpitude, or gross indiscipline, or

been convicted under the law. The Director shall have full powers of

management of the IIT subject to the Board’s mandate and control. The

Director shall exercise all powers save that specifically stated to be that of the

Board. The Director shall be ordinarily eligible for a maximum of two terms.

5. The Director of an IIT should be an individual who commands respect

among the faculty on the basis of his/her academic credibility. In addition,

the Director should have a vision to take the IIT to be a world-class

institution and possess leadership qualities to carry the entire institution

with him/her in an evolving scenario. Further, the Director should be an

excellent manager to run a large institution with very diverse set of activities,

including management of external linkages. He/she should be able to

nurture a conducive and effective governance framework that has significant

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delegation of authority that enables the Director to play a strategic role

without getting bogged down with routine activities.

For the purpose of appointment of the Director of each Institute, the Board

shall appoint a Search Committee of at least 3 members who are eminent

and accomplished citizens and well respected in the country. This

Committee may have, at most, one member of the Board. The Committee

shall propose a panel of 3 names to the Board and the Board may select one

of the names. In case the Board is unable to select any name from the panel,

the Board may ask the Committee to suggest another panel or the Board

may form another Search Committee. This process should be completed

before retirement of the existing Director.

6. The Board should have the authority to appoint the majority of its own

members by an open, transparent policy through a Nomination Committee

of the Board. The Board of an Institute shall consist of the following persons,

namely:

a. The Chairman, who shall be a non-official person of eminence in education,

science, engineering, technology or industry, to be recommended by the

Board and approved by the IIT Council

b. The Director, ex-officio

c. One eminent person who is an academician or an industrialist or Principal

Secretary in charge of higher technical education in the state, to be

nominated by the government of the state in which the Institute is situated.

However, in the case of any IIT which is situated in a location determined to

be a region by the Government of India, the nominee will be recommended

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by a Council or a representative body of that region. It is NEC in the case of

IIT Guwahati.

d. One person to be the nominee of the Ministry of Human Resource

Development, Government of India, to be nominated by the Minister

e. Three eminent representatives of industry to be selected by the Board from a

panel of names proposed by a group consisting of the Chairmen of the

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the Federation of Indian

Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the Associated Chambers of

Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and the National

Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), and such

panel being approved by the IIT Council.

f. Three eminent persons who are research scientists or technologists, to be

selected by the Board from a panel of names proposed by a group consisting

of the Presidents of INSA, IAS, NASI and INAE, and such panel being

approved by the IIT Council

g. Two eminent alumni of IIT who are not employees of any IIT, to be

appointed by the Board.

h. Two Professors of the Institute, to be nominated by the Senate

i. One eminent citizen appointed by the Board.

The term of the Board members should be maximum of 2 terms of 3 years

each, subject to recommendation of the Nomination Committee and approval by

the Board. The Chairman of the Board will be recommended by the Nominations

Committee of the Board based on a transparent and approved criteria and process,

and approved by the Board, from among its members so that there is familiarity

with the working of the Board and autonomy is respected. In the event that the

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Nominations Committee is of the opinion that there is need to look outside the

Board for a Chairman, it may do so. Appointment of the Chairman will be subject

to approval of the Council. The Act needs to be amended for this purpose.

7. The tenure of the Chairman would be for 3 years and extended for one more

term subject to the process stated above. The term of the Chairman will be

independent of the term already served on the Board as a member.

8. Each IIT would publish an annual report stating its accomplishments and

this would be widely disseminated, including being placed in the Houses of

Parliament.

9. The Board should respect the social and national development commitment

of the Government as per constitutional dictates, as the law of the land

should prevail over all else.

10. The Board should have the authority to raise funds on the assets of the IITs

in a prudent manner, after a full financial appraisal, to meet the

infrastructure needs of the IITs subject to prior approval of MHRD. The

Board should have full authority to raise funds from alumni or donors on its

own as approved under a scheme of the Board, subject however to any

conditions in the Act.

11. The Government should, through the IIT Council, exercise its prerogative

over the IIT by invoking the power of the Visitor under Section 9 (2) every 5

years so that the achievements and governance of the IITs is reviewed by a

committee set up for this purpose with eminent academicians of

international eminence as members, to assess the Institute and publish a

report thereon. This would ensure transparency and accountability to the

Government and the public. The Government can take any corrective step

based on this report without impinging on its autonomy. Section 9 gives the

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Visitor emergency powers to inquire into the affairs of the IIT and issue

such directions as he considers necessary and the IIT is bound to comply

with such directions. This is to ensure that the principle of autonomy is

balanced by full accountability as befits a public institution.

12. The composition of the Board should be a minimum of 10 members and

maximum of 15 members, including the Chairman and Director.

13. The Nominations Committee will be required to consider candidates for

membership. There will be an open transparent process. Recommendations

of the Nominations Committee will be considered by the Board and the

decision of the Board will be final and binding, subject to any subsequent

approvals.

14. As future Boards envisaged in this report will be substantially different from

existing Boards, it is recommended that the new start-up Boards of each IIT

be reconstituted by a commission set up by the IIT Council, comprising of at

least 5 members, being eminent scientists, academics, industrialists and

technocrats who are widely respected and accomplished.

The recommendations suggested above require some changes in the IIT-

Act, 1961. The original IIT-Act, 1961 along with the proposed changes in the Act

have been given in Appendix VIII.

Some recommendations about Donors:

The IITs should aim to get funding from donors to build up their funds.

There can be a larger number of donors so that support is broad based. The

donors may fund Chairs, Programmes, Scholarships, Internships, sponsorship of

faculty/students for attending conferences on a sustainable basis, fund

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infrastructure, etc. IITs may accept the above from donors based on such

conditions as it may agree at its discretion. The donor should be eligible for a full

deduction of their contribution against their income under the Income Tax Act as

is currently allowed for any grants made to Universities in India under Sec 35AC

of the Income Tax Act, 1961. A notification or an amendment is essential in the

law to include IITs in this list.

In essence, the governance model has to ensure the following:

1. Each IIT is governed by an independent Board with full authority to manage

its finance and other matters with transparency and accountability subject to

the MoU signed with the IIT Council.

2. The Government plays its role in the public interest respecting the full

autonomy of the IIT as envisaged in the MOU with each IIT.

3. Each IIT becomes financially independent for its revenues and recurring

(operation) expenditure over a period of time.

4. Public accountability is ensured by the MOU and reviews of its operations

every 5 years by the Visitor through a special review committee for this

purpose.

5. The Act needs to be amended to reflect the changes needed for this purpose.

A detailed proposal is provided in Appendix VIII.

4.10 Impact of Committee Recommendations on Government

Funding Pattern for IITs
The impact of the Committee recommendations on the Government’s

funding of the IITs is explained hereafter, based on available information. The

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figures may vary based on the condition of each IIT, decisions taken on the

Committee recommendations and other information as may be available later. For

modelling purposes, the following assumptions are made:

1. The new fee structure would be in place from the academic year 2011–12. All new

student entrants would be eligible for scholarships towards the fee, or pay the fee,

based on their background.

2. For students who are in campus from earlier years, the fee structure would remain

the same and the difference between the full fee and that payable by the students

would be paid by the Government to each IIT till the students graduate over the

years.

The following calculations indicate that the government grant per student is

comparable even when the growth is factored in and the new scheme of

scholarships is taken into account.

The fee difference as per the new scheme and old scheme is given below:

Fee Structure for
Calculations FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15
New Fee 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00

Existing Fee 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50

Difference 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50

The government grant for each of the previous 3 years is given below:

Current Government Grants

FY

7 Established IITs FY 09 FY 10 11

Plan 397 249 534

OSC 599 541 366

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Operational* 658 988 1,114

Total 1,653 1,777 2,014

New IITS

Capital+ 60 249 250

Grand Total 1,713 2,026 2,264

Notes: *Income/expense of IITs areadjusted with the surplus/deficit of

previous year

+OSC Grants are not applicable for new IITs

* Operational Grants are not applicable for new IITs

For fiscal 2012 onwards, the impact of the Committee recommendations, at a

recommended fee as stated earlier, is shown in Table 4.10.

Table 4.10 : Government Grants under New Proposal

FY
Amount in Rs. Cr FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 15 Remarks

1 Total Operational: Pension 246 270 297 327 10% increase YoY

2 Capital
Rs. 96,000 per MTech student for all
3 Assistantship 137 153 173 191 students in IIT system
* 22.5% entrants at new fee for SC/ST
exempt,
* 25% of total UG scholarships at
Scholarship for fresh 100% fees.
4 students 263 585 799 1,087 * 100% for Masters and PhD exempt
* For existing students the government
pays the difference between the new
and old fee
Supporting students of * (UG:3 prev years, Masters:1 prev
5 existing scheme 516 307 202 3 year, PhD:4 prev years)
Established 7 IITs: * Rs. 5 lakh /student of estd IITs
Rejuvenation budget (one- based on strength as of Mar 31, 2011.
6 time for existing students) 549 549 549 549 spread over 4 years

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* Rs. 1.5 lakh /student for Capital
Grant for the opening balance of
Established 7 IITs: To students in 7 estd IITs each year
7 support Research / Labs 765 856 979 1,115 ,.dependent on growth factor
* For 7 established IITs, Rs. 20
Established 7 IITs: Future lakh/new student each grant spread
8 Infrastructure creation 412 997 1,197 1,232 over 2 years
* It was Rs. 250 crore for 8 new IITs
New IITs: Future (as per MHRD for FY 11). Assumed
9 Infrastructure creation 375 563 844 1,266 growth of 50% from FY12 onwards
Rs. 10 crore per new IIT for corpus
10 New IITs : Research grant 80 80 80 80 for research
* Rs. 200 crore / IIT for 7 established
IITS spread over 4 years, new ones to
11 Research Parks 350 350 350 350 be part of their plan scheme separately

12 Total Capital Grant 3,446 4,440 5,173 5,871

Total Capital +
Operational 3,692 4,710 5,470 6,198

For Established IITs 3,237 4,068 4,546 4,852 7 IITs plus Research Parks

For New IITs 455 643 924 1,346 Includes new infra and research grants
Note: * The above does not include stipends (for e.g. PhD stipend Rs. 2.61

lakh/year/student), as these are given directly to students.

The calculation of government grants per student, with additional rejuvenation

budget for established IITs, new IITs, research grants and for Research Parks is

provided in Table 4.11.

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Table 4.11 : Government Grants, with Rejuvenation Budget, New IITs’ Research Grants
and for Research Parks

FY 10* FY 11* FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15

Total Government

Grants (Rs. crore) 2,026 2,264 3,692 4,710 5,470 6,198

No. of Students in-

campus 41,000 45,116 50,975 57,084 65,288 74,313

Grant/Student

(Rs. lakh) 4.94 5.02 7.24 8.25 8.38 8.34

Note: * Till FY 11, actuals have been taken from MHRD. FY 12 onwards,

Government spending on student scholarships, pension and infrastructure

expenditure projected in the model is considered.

The calculation of government grants per student without additional rejuvenation

budget for established IITs, new IITs, research grants and Research Parks is

provided in Table 4.12.

Table 4.12 : Government Grants, without Rejuvenation Budget, New IIT’s Research Grants
and Research Parks

FY 10* FY 11* FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15

Total

Government

Grants (Rs. crore) 2,026 2,264 2,713 3,731 4,491 5,219

No. of Students

in-campus 41,000 45,116 50,975 57,084 65,288 74,313

Grant/Student

(Rs. lakh) 4.94 5.02 5.32 6.54 6.88 7.02

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Note: The increase in FY 12 onwards is because of the growth factor in students’

intake and also due to enhanced capital expenditure for growth.

The additional rejuvenation budget for FY 12 onwards for established IITs, new

IITs, research grants and Research Parks is as follows:

FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15

Rejuvenation

Budget 549 549 549 549

New IITs’ Related

Budget 80 80 80 80

Research Parks 350 350 350 350

Total (Rs. crore) 979 979 979 979

4.10.1 Financial Implications of Recommendations
The financial recommendations of this report are with respect to Capital (non-

recurring) Expenditure, Operational (recurring) Expenses of IIT and scholarships.

We will examine them separately:

1. Capital (non-recurring) Expenditure: Today, the Government meets almost

100% of the Capital Expenditure of the IITs. The Committee recommends that

the Government continues to meet 100% of the Capital Expenditure of the

IITs. The specifics are as follows:

a. One-time capital grants associated with OSC expansion at IITs: MHRD had

earlier sanctioned Rs. 10 lakh per student for OSC expansion. The IITs have

found this to be inadequate. The Committee recommends that this be

increased to Rs. 15 lakh per additional student.

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a. Future expansion recommended by the Committee: The Committee has
recommended substantial enhancement of the IITs, especially of its PhD
programme. The Committee recommends that for such expansion, the
Government provides Rs. 20 lakh per additional student.
b. One-time capital grants for rejuvenation and refurbishment of existing
infrastructure: The IITs were set up over 50 years back and much of its
infrastructure is far below what it should be for a world-class institute. The
Committee has recommended a one-time grant of Rs. 5 lakh per existing
student for rejuvenation
c. Rs. 200 crore for each established IIT for Research Parks.
d. Yearly capital grants: The Government provides Rs. 60–70 crore per IIT as
yearly capital grants for established IITs. The Committee recommends that
in future, the IITs be provided Rs. 1.5 lakh per student as yearly capital
grants.

These are essentially recommendations for enhancement of amounts being

provided currently by MHRD considering the cost escalation over the years

and also the need for better infrastructure and future expansion. These

amounts would have to be further enhanced in future depending upon

inflation. The only exception would be the amounts for rejuvenation and for

Research Parks. The estimated amounts payable in 2012, 2013 and 2014 in this

regard are given in the above table.

2. Operational (recurring) Expenses: Today, over 80% of the operational expenses

of the IITs come as grants from MHRD. The Committee recommends that in

future the IITs be financially totally independent of MHRD for their non-plan

(operational) budget. However, the old pension-related expenses still need to

be paid by MHRD. No other operational expenses would be paid to the IITs.

Today, MHRD provides close to Rs. 2 lakh per student per year (including

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scholarships) as operational grant to the IITs. This amount would become nil.

For the current 45,000 students, this would be roughly equal to Rs. 900 crore.

3. Scholarships: Today, MHRD provides full tuition and scholarships for all UG

students from reserved and economically weaker sections, and for M.Tech, MS

and PhD students. Besides, it provides merit-cum-mean scholarships to about

25% of all UG students. The Committee recommendation is that MHRD

should continue to provide the scholarship plus full tuition fee to the same set

of students. This amount would go up substantially as

a. Tuition fees of IITs would now go up, pushing up the amount of tuition fee.
b. Increase in the number of students, especially of M.Tech and PhD students,
will push up this amount.
If we combine expenditures detailed under points 2 and 3 today, even though

the Government would now reimburse the enhanced tuition fees for all

postgraduate students, reserved category students and for those who qualify for

merit-cum-means, it would still save an amount equal to the enhanced fees

paid by students who do not get scholarships. So there would be a net saving by

the Government on this count.

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Faculty at IITs

World-class Institutions require world-class faculty members. This is especially

true since the IITs have graduated from being the best undergraduate institutions

to the best research-cum-teaching institutes. A reputed and highly qualified

faculty will be needed to attract the best research scholars from India and abroad.

Attracting and retaining high quality faculty is one of the most difficult tasks for

any institute and this would have to be among the top priorities of the department

chairs and director of an institute.

Before we look at specific steps that need to be taken up by the IITs, let us look

at what young quality faculty members are looking for. They are different from

their counterparts in a similar age bracket, who are similarly qualified and work

elsewhere. While they consider themselves (and often are) intellectually superior,

they are free spirited. They know that academia may not give them the comfort

and wealth that many other disciplines could, but they seek a liberal academic

environment which gives them great intellectual satisfaction. However, today’s

young faculty and their families will want a comfortable, urban upper-middle class

life with minimum problems. They value, above all, their autonomy to choose

what they would work on, pursue the research that they wish to and build

relationships of their choice; they resent any form of bureaucracy and there must

be a very good reason for anything that is refused to them. They would want a

very transparent, participative and fair administration which keeps everything

functioning for them. They aspire for peer recognition which they value and

would not mind a fair peer evaluation process for themselves and for their group.

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What matters to them most is the respect among peers and not necessarily the

pursuit of wealth.

The academia has been highly influenced by scientists in the West. Thus, paper

publications are considered of highest value. IPR and technology creation is new

and while it is acceptable today, it is considered secondary to papers. The same is

true when it comes to influencing policies; while some have taken it up, it is not

considered to be the highest form of activity. In other words, the faculty is more

inward looking, less to do with what can impact or influence the society. Of

course, there are those who differ, but they are a small minority.

Today’s young faculty in India is a very confident lot; they consider themselves

to be second to none in the world. The only reason, they believe, they do not seem

to perform as well as some others is because certain external conditions prevent

them from doing so.

While one has to start with grooming the values, attitudes and desires of

today’s bright youngsters who wish to become faculty members at IITs, at the

same time it is important to prepare them to build and lead world-class Indian

institutions of tomorrow. As the nation moves towards overcoming many of its

shortcomings and acquiring global-level leadership in many areas, it would

require its best academic institutions to look inwards and do much more for the

nation. Attitudes have to change if India’s academic institutions have to become

the best in the world and help the nation attain its goals and aspirations.

5.1 Scaling of Faculty at IITs
One of most complex tasks that the IITs will have to take up is the scaling up of

quality faculty. There are around 4000 faculty members in the IIT system today.

As discussed in Chapter 3, this number has to be scaled up to about 16,000 in the
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next 10 to 12 years. This is not going to be an easy task. While Table 3.1 in

Chapter 3 does indicate that this is potentially achievable, it will indeed be an

uphill task for the institutes to make this happen.

The IITs must appear to a potential candidate as the right place to join and

work in. While the established IITs do indeed have an attractive academic culture,

the newer IITs would have to work hard to create a similar culture and innovate to

do better. But even the established IITs do not have the ecosystem to dramatically

scale up. For the young minds who aspire to join the IITs as faculty, there are

many questions that would need to be answered. The recent protest by IIT faculty

regarding pay has indeed created a doubt in many minds. Most youngsters believe

that if the IITs are to become world-class institutes, then a lot has to be done fix all

this. Here are some pointers:

a. They have to see a strong, functioning and responsive administration. They

would like to see that the institutes are financially secure and strong.

b. They would like to see that the campus environment is modern, clean and an

attractive place to live and work in. They would like to see facilities for good

education for their children in campus schools or nearby. They would also like

decent accommodation.

c. They would like to see strong departments with good facilities. The presence of

high quality and renowned faculty will be a great attraction.

d. They would like to be assured of good start-up grants, follow-up research

funding and facilities, and quality students and research scholars.

In achieving all this, a great deal of effort is required of the Directors of the

IITs, department chairs and department faculty. It is the faculty of a department

who are in the best position to attract other faculty. They have to be involved and

they have to lead; the department chairs, directors and deans of the institutes have

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to enable all this. The box below describes the efforts required in the form of

Faculty Search Committees of a department; certain departments in some

institutes have taken this up, producing some excellent results.

Departmental Faculty Search Committee

Young PhDs today have a significant number of options. To attract
them to join IITs as faculty members, the IITs would have to do a
significant amount of work; gone are the days when they would be
expected to come knocking at an IIT’s door; floating an advertisement and
expecting them to apply would not go very far. One has to do something
considerably different.

One of the ways that has proven to be successful in attracting young
talent is the creation of a department-level faculty search committee
consisting of young faculty members, with a mandate to attract and recruit
the best faculty for the department. The committee members send feelers
to top institutions around the world, short-list youngsters who are in the
middle of their PhDs, especially those of Indian origin. One of the faculty
members in the committee would get in touch with such youngsters and
get them to come and participate in a seminar if and when they visit India.
The departmental faculty would use this opportunity to carry out an
evaluation; if they consider him/her to be of suitable as faculty, the
committee would keep in touch and try to influence the youngster to join
as a faculty immediately after graduation.

The committee also quickly scans the bio-data of any person who writes
to the department/institute expressing interest in a faculty position.
Carrying out the initial evaluation, the committee gets the departmental
Chair to respond within a few days of receiving such an interest (a survey
of the faculty who joins has shown that the quality of the first letter from a
department influences to a reasonable extent the final decision of the
youngster). The candidate is requested to give a seminar to the department
faculty (in some cases even remotely on video), interact one–on-one with a

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few faculty members and a quick decision is made. The speed of the
decision-making and the professionalism in treating a candidate well is the
key to attracting them to the institute

5.2 Part-time and Adjunct Faculty from Industry
Most IITs have the provision to hire people from industry as part-time

or adjunct faculty. However, this provision is sparingly utilized. Also, the

IITs have not found adequate means to leverage even those few who are

hired. This needs to change. Today, Indian industry is increasingly

involved in Research and Development and has highly qualified and

experienced people. They could be leveraged by the IITs in the following

ways:

a. Certain courses at the IITs can be converted to 4–5 modules of 8 to 10

lectures. It will be beneficial if the adjunct faculty teaches one or more of

these modules (including conducting tests and evaluation on these

modules). The teaching would hopefully be different – reflecting and

drawing on the industry experience of the faculty. It would help students

to understand industry better and start an interaction between them and

industry personnel. Further, it would reduce the teaching load of the

regular faculty.

b. The adjunct faculty could guide B.Tech/M.Tech students by helping to provide

more industrial content in their projects. This will help IITs handle increasing

number of UG/M.Tech students.

c. Adjunct faculty could be co-guides for MS/PhD students, especially if they are

from industry. It will help enrich their research content.

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d. Joint industry–academia projects could be taken up by adjunct faculty along with

regular faculty.

e. Adjunct faculty can join hands with regular faculty in taking up interventions on

government policies and regulations.

It may be desirable that the IITs identify and bring in adjunct faculty with the

same care and drive they display when recruiting regular faculty.

The IITs should also consider bringing in some reputed overseas faculty as

adjunct faculty, especially if they are willing to spend some time at the IITs every

year. This would add to the IITs’ drive to become the best institutes in the world.

IITs with more autonomy could have both the attraction as well as resources for

getting such faculty members.

5.3 Faculty Pay-scales and Remuneration
It is recommended that the respective IIT Boards should have full powers to

decide on hiring, remuneration and benefits, evaluation and promotion of all

faculty members within the overall policy framework made by the IIT Council.

The decisions on faculty remuneration will be one of the critical tasks of the

Board. The IITs have so far functioned assuming that pay-scales are to be decided

by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and that all the funds

would also come from MHRD. But with the autonomy envisaged in this report,

revenue generation and expenditure would become the responsibility of the

institute’s management. On the one hand, the remuneration has to be good to

attract good faculty members, but on the other hand it has to be in line with the

total revenue and expenditure of the institute. The IITs presently have uniform

pay-scales and increments, in the sense that once hired at a certain level (on a

fixed pay-scale), all faculty members get the same increments and remuneration
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year after year. Further, the remuneration is equal for all disciplines. The Board

would now be empowered to have different remunerations4 for different faculty

members (based on appraisals) and could give different increments each year. IIT

administration is not used to this system and may not be able to handle the

dissatisfaction and murmurs this new system may generate. Also, the IITs

currently do not have any serious faculty appraisal process in place and the only

appraisal is carried out for promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate

Professor and from Associate Professor to Professor. This has to change. Some

suggestions to fix remuneration could be as follows:

a. Have a base pay which is more in line with today’s salaries and could be

based on the Government Pay Commission’s recommendations.

b. The institute could then add a component, which could depend on the

performance of the institute and the importance and market value of the

discipline to which the faculty belongs.

4
The IITs, till recently, would decide on the pay-scale of a faculty only when he/she is taken as Assistant Professor, and
subsequently for promotion to Associate Professor and then for promotion to Professor. Even here, the scales are fixed and only a
few increments are decided based on experience and expertise. But this is now changing. Along with the latest pay revision, the
IITs have introduced performance-based incentives (PRILL), where yearly evaluation and certain incentives are proposed. This is
to be implemented soon. The second is that those who get the Bhatnagar Award are today given Rs 15,000 per month. Also, if one
is a member of two of the four academies, it is proposed to give them Rs 15,000 per month. Besides, there are fellowships like the
J.C. Bose Fellowship, which can give Rs 25,000 per month. Several institutes have introduced some chair/fellowships where a
faculty can be given some extra allowance every month. But this is done sparingly in some IITs.

Besides, all the IITs allow consultancy assignments to be taken up and the faculty can retain up to 70% of what they bring from
industry. Also, there is a provision for taking fellowship and work outside IITs for up to 2 months every year. There is also a
provision for sabbatical, where a faculty gets his/her salary while they take up a fellowship. So, there is the scope for variable pay.
The recommendations here are that the Boards can then decide on the appraisals, remunerations and variable components.
Today, IIT salaries are fixed by a Committee and based on Pay Commissions. The pay includes basic pay and DA. The DA
component gets revised based on inflation but the annual increase is miniscule. When the IITs de-link from the government, the
DA component may no longer exist and, therefore, there has to be annual appraisals and hikes.

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c. There could be a third component which would depend on the performance

of the faculty, the recognition in terms of academy fellowships and awards.

d. The fourth component for an individual faculty would be the consultancy

component in line with what they get today (except that unlike today, even a

sponsored project could have a component contributing to it).

e. An IIT faculty member can join the Board of a company after taking the

necessary permission from the institute. The Board’s sitting fee and

remuneration would be taken directly by the faculty member.

The IITs could consider taking faculty on a tenure track system. In such a

system, a young faculty is initially taken as a tenure track faculty on contract. The

faculty needs to show significant ability, publish and/or work closely with industry

producing high quality work over a period of 5 to 7 years. His/her work is then

evaluated thoroughly and only an excellent performance would enable the faculty

member to obtain what is a tenured position. Faculty who do not succeed in

getting a tenured position even after several years, are asked to leave. Such a

system is followed in universities in the United States and it helps prune out non-

performing faculty. The best universities have a very tough tenure evaluation,

where only a fraction of the faculty succeeds. The IITs are not used to such a

process and it is likely that there will be some opposition to it. The Governing

Boards of the IITs could consider faculty recruitment at the IITs under two tracks

– one track being regular faculty as they are recruited today and the other being

the tenure track. Faculty selected through the tenure track could have higher scales

in order to attract brighter candidates.

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5.4 Faculty Appraisal
The Board of each IIT should decide on the roles, responsibilities and appraisal

of their faculty. Faculty roles may include teaching, research, technology

development and industrial consultancy, as well as policy making and standards

development. Besides, they may be involved in administrative functions. While

each Board can decide on how they wish to carry out the appraisals, a possible

appraisal process is suggested here.

The faculty sets an annual goal. Younger faculty members could possibly

discuss their goals with the Department chair or senior faculty members before

finalizing them. Senior faculty could set their goals and appraise them on their

own. In the goal setting, for example, a faculty can decide what percentage of

his/her time and focus in the next year will be spent on each of the following 5

parameters:

1 Teaching (and project guidance): say 25%

2 Research, MS/PhD guidance, Research-oriented projects: say 40%

3 Technology development, Industry interaction: say 15%

4 Policy/Standards: say 10%

5 Service: say 10%

There could be a minimum share expected of the faculty members in each of

these parameters, depending on whether or not they are involved in

administration. Besides, the goals could also be specified qualitatively in each of

these 5 areas, depending upon what the faculty wishes to do.

At the end of the year, the faculty member conducts a self-appraisal (say on a

scale of 0 to 10) on each of these 5 parameters and cites evidence for each score –

both qualitative and quantitative. They would also be required to explain

deviations from the original goal.
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Review/evaluation of self-appraisal: A departmental committee would review

the appraisals for Assistant Professors and an institute-level committee would

review the appraisals for others. Once in 5 years, an external review of these

appraisals could be carried out. The appraisals should not rely too much on the

numbers (like number of papers published – sometimes referred to as bean

counting) but on the quality and impact of the work done.

One possible lacuna of this system of having committees for evaluation and

decision-making with respect to remuneration could be that the committee

members will not reward excellence as such and could tend to equate everyone,

thereby promoting mediocrity. Further, they may use compassion to evaluate low-

performing fellow faculty. Keeping this possibility in mind, members of the

appraisal committee, both at the departmental and institute levels, should be

selected from among the high-performing faculty (top 5%). The performance

would be measured by:

a. Recognition and awards the faculty member has received at the

national/international level

b. Academy fellowships

c. Excellent publication record

d. Quantum of funds the faculty member has brought into the institute

e. Excellence in technology development

f. Excellence in interaction with industry

Appraisal of department chairs: Department chairs need to be selected on the

basis of their ability to lead the department and drive excellence. The IITs use a

rotation system for selecting department chairs. While using the rotation system,

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driving of excellence should not be sacrificed. They should be appraised annually

on the basis of the performance of the department with respect to:

a. Recognition and awards the department faculty members receive at the

national/international level

b. Academy fellowships for department faculty

c. Research publications of department faculty/research scholars

d. Quantum of funds that department faculty brings in

e. Technology developed by department faculty

f. Quantum of department faculty’s interaction with industry

g. Number of MS/PhD students it graduates

Besides, the high-performing faculty (top 5%) of the department (referred

above) should carry out an appraisal of the department chair. Based on these

appraisals, the Director would conduct a department chair appraisal and place the

record before a Board sub-committee.

Appraisal of deans: The deans need to be evaluated by a process similar to that

of department chairs. Once again, the emphasis has to be on excellence in their

performances, as measured by how the institute fares. It may be desirable that the

appraisal and selection of deans is rigorously looked at by a committee of the

Board of Governors.

Encouraging technology development: One of the weaknesses of the IITs today

is their lack of experience and expertise in evaluating the “technological

development and industrial consultancy roles” of its faculty members. Neither the

departments nor their faculty members have expertise in this area. Most external

experts are also weak in this respect. While they can evaluate the faculty on the

basis of the quality and quantity of their publications, this is not so with respect to

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technology development. In fact, some even argue that this is not academic

research. Low-quality papers are sometimes rated higher than such development.

Therefore, technology development and work with industry is under-emphasized

and faculty/faculty candidates who are strong in this aspect are not promoted or

even selected. It becomes self-perpetuating as the IITs do not get senior faculty

who can conduct such evaluations. Young faculty members do not go out to

develop relationships with industry and postpone this to a later stage of their

career. At the same time, occasionally technological development of mediocre

quality is romanticized. All this impacts the character of the IITs and they fail to

achieve excellence in terms of industrial collaborations, technology development

and commercialization.

The IITs would have to pay special attention to this aspect in order to change

their current character. One way forward is to invite people who have excelled in

technology development and commercialization to all appraisal and selection

committees in significant numbers and explicitly look for such contribution from

faculty.

Nurturing post-doctoral fellows

The world over, the best institutes have a considerable number of young post-

doctoral fellows. Funding of these fellowships mostly come from the research

grants of the faculty. The IITs need to pay special attention to get and nurture a

significant number of post-doctoral fellows. First, their pay and remuneration

could be on par with young faculty who would enter the IITs, especially as such

fellowships are temporary in nature and do not have all the benefits associated

with a faculty position. At the same time, the IITs have to recognize these fellows

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(as well as other temporary staff hired for projects) as an important component of

the institute and contributing to its growth.

Start-up Research Grants for Young Faculty

Most top institutions in the world have a programme to attract top-
grade talented young PhDs as faculty in their institutions. The programme
includes an attractive pay package, start-up research grants and space to set
up labs. Sometimes a significant research grant and facilities are provided
to accomplished faculty members to attract them to the institute.

As the IITs go about attracting talent, they have to work out such
special schemes. While the IITs themselves would provide start-up grants
(today it typically provides Rs. 10 lakh), this needs to be complemented by
some national-level programme and schemes. It is recommended that
young faculty should be able to quickly get start-up research grants of up
to Rs. 1 crore on a competitive basis, but where the whole process—that is,
from the time a grant proposal (format to be on web-site) is submitted to
the money coming to their institute—should be no more than 3 months.
MHRD could set up such schemes jointly with DST and similar other
organizations. The grant should allow the young faculty and his/her
students to attend conferences in India and abroad, buy equipment and
consumables and hire project staff without restrictions. The grants should
be available for up to the first 2 years of a faculty joining these institutes.

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Academic leaders at new IITs

Through intensive efforts, the new IITs are able to attract a number of young

faculties. They are mainly fresh PhDs, though some may have a few years of

research or teaching experience. As such, most are enthusiastic to set up a new IIT

and establish themselves as renowned academicians. Coming from diverse

backgrounds, they have fresh ideas that could transform their chosen IITs.

However, they lack the experience necessary to drive their ambitions in an IIT

which has mostly fresh faculty members. It will take the new IITs about 10–20

years to achieve prominence. There are a number of eminent mid-career faculty in

the established IITs and other premier institutions in India and in universities

abroad, who are excited by the challenges and opportunities presented by the new

IITs. Some technical people from R&D labs in industry are also attracted to the

new IITs.

Such mid-career faculties who have already achieved renown and have

experience in research and teaching could serve as leaders to catalyse the energy

and ambitions of a group of young faculty. Such a group could achieve global

renown in a few years. With say 5–10 such academic leaders and 100 young

faculties, a new IIT could make a global impact in a few areas even within 5 years.

For many routine matters in running the IITs, senior faculty are required. They

serve as Heads, Deans, Chairs of Committees, members of the Senate, etc. These

are all essential aspects of an IIT which cannot be served by either junior faculty or

non-teaching staff.

A mid-career faculty who wishes to be transferred to a new IIT either for a few

years or permanently, faces a number of hurdles. Most significantly, a person who

has joined prior to 2004 may be on the old pension scheme, which is not

transferable to the new IITs. This is a major long-term loss to the faculty and his

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dependants after retirement. Further, the faculty will have a significant stake in

his/her current location in terms of schooling for children, membership in clubs,

setting up of residence and immovable property, besides setting up of labs,

research students, and so on. Therefore, the individual needs considerable

incentives to migrate to a new IIT. Individual Boards of new IITs could decide on

such incentives. We also recommend that mobility of high-performing faculty

between IITs should receive special support, particularly in the context of

protecting pension arrangements. Since we are recommending sustaining faculty

who are already on the old pension scheme through MHRD support, this should

be possible. (Also see Appendix VII.)

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Staff at IITs

Every educational institute requires staff, other than faculty, to carry out a

diverse set of support functions. These include administrative staff,

scientific/technical staff and support staff. As the IITs move to expand and

attempt to become high-quality research institutes, the question arises as to what

should be the policy to attract, retain and nurture staff members who would be

essential towards this growth. It must be noted that in the absence of good staff,

the work of faculty members increases considerably.

As the IITs transform themselves to be totally autonomous and governed by

their Boards, it is imperative that each IIT Governing Board is empowered to take

all decisions with respect to staff. These include the numbers, the pay-scales,

tenure of appointment and remuneration, as well as accountability and appraisals.

Even though there have been some excellent and committed staff members

who have contributed very significantly to the growth of the IITs, overall, the

experience of IITs in matters related to staff have not been very positive. A

number of staff treat this as a “secure government job” and do the bare minimum

that will help retain their jobs.

At the same time, upkeep of the IITs has not been what it should be for top-

class institutes in the world. This could be partly due to the IITs not having an

adequate operation budget (Opex) for this. The other reason could be inadequate

planning in terms of where the Opex would come from when capital expenditure

(Capex) is carried out. Yet another reason for this could be inadequate drive and

motivation of staff carrying out these functions. The Committee’s

recommendations in this context are presented in the following sections.

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6.1 Support Staff
Whenever planning for capital expenditure on infrastructure/scientific

equipment, it should be done in a way such that the sources for Opex

requirements towards managing and maintaining this infrastructure/scientific

equipment are identified at the outset. The emphasis would be to keep the

infrastructure and equipment in top shape and functional till such time they are

considered useful. The planning should include the strategy and resources

required for a phase-out when the infrastructure/equipment is no longer in use

and disposed of/replaced.

a. Towards this, it is suggested that the complete infrastructure management

and maintenance function of the IITs be outsourced to a facilities

management company which has the capacity and capability to manage

such an infrastructure and keep it in such shape as required by top-grade

institutes (the outsourcing should include all expenditure, including

replacement and consumables required). This company should be involved

whenever new infrastructure is being planned so that its management and

maintenance can be planned in advance. The company should be appraised

in terms of the quality of the institute’s infrastructure. It may be worth

mentioning that most top educational institutes in China use this

methodology and have gained considerably in terms of the looks and upkeep

of the campus.

b. A similar approach should be used for provision of security at such

institutes. Complete outsourcing of all the support activities would help IIT

management focus on more important matters. However, the existing staff

needs to be protected for their tenure with all entitlements intact.
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6.2 Scientific Staff
The IITs have always struggled to provide an adequate career path for its

scientific staff. Many good staff had been engaged in the early days of the IITs, but

the growth path for such staff has not been worked out well. Some of the scientific

staff attempt to become faculty members at IITs, but often the IITs do not find

them suitable for such positions. This results in frustration and lack of motivation,

which impacts their performance.

a. As a result, the IITs have almost stopped recruiting such scientific staff in

recent years, even though it is recognized that high-quality scientific staff is

essential, especially for experimental research.

b. In recent years, the IITs have hired young temporary project staff, fresh out of

colleges, who stay at the IITs for 3 to 5 years and then move on. The training

they receive (some of them also pursue part-time Masters and PhD

programmes) gives them a good career path in industry/scientific labs. The IITs

are therefore playing an important role and this should continue and even be

recognized as one of their important objectives. However, when they leave after

a few years, it leaves the IITs with a handicap when it comes to managing their

experimental facilities. The faculty has to therefore train new staff every few

years.

c. Therefore, while continuing to use temporary project staff and training them,

new approaches are also required. One approach could be as follows: Whenever

the IITs purchase expensive scientific equipment, they should request the

suppliers to quote for placing a technical staff at the institute for the next 5

years (or the life of the equipment) for operations; this should be in addition to

the annual maintenance contract (AMC). Expensive equipment should anyway

be shared and used by multiple scientists. These should, as far as possible, also
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be used by industry and/or the society. A trained operations staff would make

this easier. Industrial users could be charged and scientists could charge such

expenses to their projects. Thus, the institute would get trained staff from the

day the equipment is commissioned. It is possible that the same person

manages and maintains not just one piece of equipment, but the whole lab.

This will help overcome the problem of getting trained staff without concerns

of career paths for them. However, existing staff at all the IITs will have to be

protected for their remaining tenures with all their entitlements intact. They

should also be equipped to discharge their functions effectively. Wherever

necessary, they should be given appropriate training within the country or

abroad.

d. Any scientific staff that the IITs hire on a permanent basis should be carefully

looked at; their career path, compensation and motivation need to be

examined. In the absence of clarity on these issues, scientific staff should be

hired only on a temporary basis or leased from companies.

6.3 Technical Staff
Institutes like the IITs require some technical staff primarily for laboratory

based teaching. Persons with engineering diplomas are usually hired by the IITs to

fulfill this requirement. They play an important role in managing and maintaining

the equipment in teaching laboratories and also help with instructions and

supervision for students in the lab, thus reducing the workload of the faculty. They

also perform some administrative functions for laboratories, including help in

purchase and stock management. While many of them are very good, they often

lack motivation as they grow older, after which they carry out minimum duties.

They perform much better when they are younger and are learning. An effective
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way to keep them motivated is to capitalize on their strong sense of belonging to

the Institute. They should also have the opportunity to upgrade their skills

through formal training in elite institutions in India or abroad.

a. While the motivational aspects have to be examined by the department’s

management, one should examine whether such staff can be sourced from

an agency for the first 5–10 years of their career. With the training that they

will receive at the IITs, they could be important human resources for

research labs and for industry.

b. Since the number of PhD students is going to increase considerably, it

should be possible to increasingly use them as teaching assistants,

specifically for lab classes. Since there is likely to be a number of teachers

from engineering colleges among PhD students, their teaching and lab

experience at the IITs would train them to perform better once they return

to their parent institutions. It should be noted that in Europe and the United

States, graduate students (PhD students) play a major role in managing the

labs in their departments. A certain level of hands-on skills should, in fact,

be welcome.

6.4 Administrative Staff
While the IITs have had some excellent administrative staff (including finance

staff and those administering academic programmes), IIT faculty have had to

increasingly take up administrative roles. This shows that the IITs have not been

able to hire and retain quality administrative staff in adequate numbers and keep

them motivated. The compensation structure has not been able to attract people of

high quality, as they are in high demand in industry.

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a. With increasing use of IT, the quantum of administrative tasks would

generally reduce. The use of IT for carrying out most tasks in decision-

making and process workflows needs to be accelerated.

b. It should be noted that the IITs have occasionally hired senior experienced

staff/consultants in recent years on a temporary basis. They are ex-defense

personnel and from public/private sector companies or institutions after

taking voluntary retirement. The performance of many of them has been

good. The IITs should continue to attract such talent and even regularize

them after watching them for a few years.

6.5 Project Staff
The IITs recruit project staff at various levels on a temporary basis. Some of the

staff also pursue part-time Masters or PhD programmes at the institute. In recent

years, some of them have been hired as post-doctoral fellows. While the time they

spend at the institute helps them to train as scientific staff for the nation, their

contribution to the institute is also quite significant. The IITs must recognize that

such project staff is important for bringing R&D funds to the institute and for

building R&D infrastructure. At the same time, some of them would contribute in

teaching, especially in lab classes. Being temporary staff, they often do not enjoy

the same privileges in the institute and are not treated with the requisite respect.

Special effort is needed to address/ change this.

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6.6 Autonomy and Role of Staff
i. The IIT Boards should decide on the numbers, remuneration and pay-scales

of staff.

ii. It is suggested that most (may be about 70%) staff members are outsourced.

These young staff members who start their career at the IITs and work there

for 5 to 10 years would be well trained to be absorbed in industry. This way

the IITs would get young motivated staff members.

While the aim should be to resort to outsourcing of functions to the maximum

extent possible and drastically reduce the number of support staff on regular rolls

in a progressive manner, the IITs do need to have professionally trained managers

to manage and maintain the various support functions.

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

7.1 The Need
As India grows economically and strives to be a global leader, we are faced with

multiple challenges. These include poor infrastructure, low quality schools and

colleges, a glaring urban-rural divide, resource depletion and pervasive pollution.

It is clear that this country of one billion plus people cannot follow the beaten path

to quickly overcome these challenges. Innovation is needed in technologies, in

businesses and in society. In such a situation, the alumni and faculty of the IITs,

the premier technology institutes and among the best centres of higher education

in the country, have the responsibility to lay out the paths and directions that India

needs in order to move forward. Thus, one of the key roles of IITs should be of

driving innovation and entrepreneurship.

7.2 Benefits
Driving innovation and entrepreneurship has many benefits for the IITs.

Successful innovation, especially when it is aimed at major problems facing the

society, requires development of novel technologies. These result in patents and

publications – the traditional measures of performance of faculty and research

institutions.

Innovation and entrepreneurship also has a positive impact on teaching. This

provides faculty first-hand knowledge of what is useful and used in industry. Thus

his/her teaching can be made more interesting and relevant to the jobs that many

students seek after graduation. Experience has shown that introducing real-world

examples and insights that are not available in most textbooks is very exciting and
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motivating to students. It keeps their interest in the course high and motivates

them towards innovation and entrepreneurship. Another positive impact on

teaching is that the faculty can invite R&D personnel from industry to deliver

guest lectures. This again improves the learning experience. R&D personnel from

industry can even become adjunct faculty, teaching entire courses and guiding

student projects. Apart from enriching the academic environment, this reduces the

teaching load on the full-time faculty so that they can spend more time on their

academic pursuits.

Many universities encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the hope of

earning substantial royalties. Success stories such as that of Stanford University

drive this ambition. Up to 2006, Stanford had earned $1.09 billion from royalties

on over 6400 patents.5 Closer home, IIT Madras has earned over Rs. 6 crore in

royalties from several tens of patents. While this is alluring, the faculty and

administration must understand the realities. In the case of Stanford, one-third of

the total royalty was earned from a single patent. The top 10 patents, a mere 0.16%

of its 6400 patents, earned about 88% of the total royalty. Further, the payback

period for the successful patents was typically 10–15 years. Likewise, at IIT

Madras, 75% of the total royalties resulted from a single license – the corDECT

WLL system. This royalty came 10–12 years after the technology was first licensed

to industry. Thus, it is important to realize that innovation and entrepreneurship

can yield substantial benefits only if it is pursued diligently for long periods. As the

period of 10–15 years is much longer than the period between promotions, it is

crucial that the promotion criteria of the IITs encourage such long-term

commitment of faculty to the task. In any case, the rich learning experience that

5
E. Crawley et al., Rethinking Engineering Education: The CDIO Approach, Springer, 2010.
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students gain on the path of innovation and entrepreneurship is the biggest

advantage.

7.3 Recipe
Experience shows that innovation thrives in an ecosystem where three sets of

people interact in an informal or formal environment. These include a faculty

member, an experienced R&D person from industry and a youngster/student. The

faculty member brings in breadth of knowledge and the ability to apply knowledge

and techniques from one field to solve problems in another. An experienced R&D

person from industry knows how to convert a lab prototype into a product which

can be manufactured, which works in the field on a 24x7 basis and is acceptable to

the user/consumer and, most important, which makes commercial sense. The

strength of a bright youngster/student is that s/he does not know that "it cannot be

done" and is therefore ready to plunge in and, once motivated, will work day and

night on it. When these three sets of people interact, innovation thrives.

Fortunately, the IITs already have two of these three sets of people on campus.

However, the industry person is often missing. In the normal course of functioning

of the IITs, there is little opportunity for these three sets of people to be together.

Most good universities in the West have attended to this issue by bringing R&D of

industry into the campus or adjacent to the campus. The IITs also need to follow a

similar path. This can be done in two ways. First, the faculty should engage in large

and substantial projects sponsored by industry with deliverables that are tied to the

business plans of industry. This ensures close collaboration between the faculty

and industry. A more effective way is to bring industrial research labs to the

campus. IIT-M has already taken the lead by setting up the IIT-M Research Park

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adjacent to its campus. It has even evolved a credit system to measure the

involvement of industry with IIT-M, and does not allow industries in the Research

Park unless they meet a minimum credit requirement. Other IITs also need to

follow a similar system. For this to succeed, the Government must provide the

right policies and incentives.

Innovation requires good commercial understanding. As a consequence of their

training, most faculty in IITs do not have this understanding. They do not

understand the relationship between a bill of material, the cost of a product and

the final price of the product. They have little idea about the costs of

manufacturing, wastage, procurement, marketing, sales, distribution, finance and

depreciation. With such poor understanding of commercials, the research problem

that they take up would rarely touch issues that involve industry. A focus on

innovation and entrepreneurship requires a change in the mindset of most faculty.

They need to be convinced that commercial issues are important. They need to

learn about these issues from industry through sponsored projects, consultancy

and interactions in on-campus Research Parks.

The IITs have started along the road to innovation. Up to the mid 1990s,

incubation of companies on campus was frowned upon in the IITs. Those who did

incubate companies, did it under wraps. A decade later, it had become acceptable

and most IITs now have some sort of incubation programme. To be effective, these

programmes must be led by those faculty who, through experience, have a good

understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship. The incubation cells should

focus on providing training and support in commercial issues rather than simply

providing space and computers. The IITs need to have enlightened policies

regarding sharing of royalty income. The faculty should be encouraged to plough

back a portion of the royalty into the next innovative idea, taking only a fraction as

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salary. The IITs should not take a large fraction of royalty in the beginning, nor a

large equity for its help in incubation. Such policies often kill the goose before it

lays the golden egg. The IITs have to first nurture innovation and entrepreneurship

before expecting any substantial resource generation from this.

The same is the case with the Intellectual Property Right (IPR) policy. The IITs

have very little experience in generating and making significant revenue out of

IPRs. This is something it needs to learn. It needs to understand what it takes to

generate IPRs that will bring in large commercial gains. To learn this, it needs to

work with industry and, in the beginning, give more than it wishes to take. As it

gains experience, it would not only learn to generate significant commercially

viable IPRs, but also to get the right commercial value for it. IIT administration

sometimes do not understand this and tend to hurt a budding academic–industry

interaction in its attempt to gain more.

7.4 Academic Structure
Innovation is inherently inter-disciplinary in nature. For example, in the 1960s,

Gary Starkweather of Xerox brought together expertise in optics, electronics and

mechanical engineering to invent the laser printer which has revolutionized

printing. 6 The IITs have built their departments as silos. Little inter-department

work is done and, in fact, when faculty from different departments start working

together, they are often even discouraged. Inter-disciplinary programmes have

therefore rarely come up and even if they do, they are finally one or the other

department's baby.

6
W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves, Free Press, 2009, pp. 117–18.

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It is not easy to register a PhD student between an Engineering and Humanities

department or an Engineering and Management department. If one does so, both

the departments would make it difficult for the student/faculty, for they simply do

not know how to manage this. There are many instances of IIT B.Tech students of

Chemical or Mechanical Engineering or Metallurgy who have gone to the US to do

a PhD in Computer Science and Electronics or Electrical Engineering and have

carried out excellent research. Very rarely does this happen in the IITs. Similarly,

many departments insist while recruiting that a potential faculty member must

have a basic degree in the same department, even if otherwise the person is very

good. These policies are counter-productive as far as creating a climate for

innovation is concerned.

In this context, the new IITs present a unique opportunity. Several of them have

eschewed departments, grouping faculty in broad Schools instead. IIT Jodhpur

does not even have Schools! In some of the new IITs, faculty offices and lab space

are combined between disciplines to encourage inter-disciplinary interaction. In

one case, a chemistry faculty who shares an office with a computer scientist has

developed an interest in a new research area – molecular cryptography. A few years

ago, IIT Madras offered up to Rs. 1 crore of internal funding to projects proposed

by groups of faculty from at least 3 different departments. Several of these projects

helped develop inter-disciplinary expertise. However, after the initial internal

funding, the momentum has petered out in many cases due to the traditional

departmental barriers.

The curriculum for B.Tech/M.Tech students follows the decades old traditional

structure. It progresses from basics of the sciences, to basics of a particular

discipline to advanced topics in that discipline. There is some flexibility to take

electives, but these are often towards the end of the degree course and are carefully

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restricted to fit students into a predetermined mould. This well-structured

curriculum does not allow a creative student the freedom to do courses across

departments, take off for a semester and try participating in a start-up and come

back, or take up some project work instead of a course. The curriculum is designed

for a mass of ordinary students; it does not cater to exceptional students. The

structure goes against the promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation.

There are exploratory attempts to change this. For example, IIT Delhi has a

course on design in the first year which gives students hands-on experience with

designing and building useful products. The new IITs have the chance to quickly

develop much more flexible curricula as they are not weighed down by decades of

tradition and cumbersome processes. IIT Mandi is extending the IIT Delhi

approach to give students hands-on design-oriented mini projects throughout

their programme. This is patterned on the curriculum in Olin College, Boston, and

the conceive-design-implement-operate (CDIO) approach being popularized by

MIT.7

7.5 Summary
Enterprises born out of universities convert their research into products and

processes. This brings in a new dimension to research. It enables faculty and

students to learn commercial aspects and make their research so much more

relevant. Incubation in universities is therefore essential for innovation.

Innovation, because of its exploratory nature, is prone to failure. Over 4

decades, Stanford University produced only 6400 patents—a very small fraction of

7
Linda Chao, ‘Licensing to Companies in Asia: The Stanford Model’, Oct 2006,
http://asia.stanford.edu/events/fall06/slides/061026-chao.pdf
147

its paper publications during the same period. Less than 1% of these patents

earned royalties of over $1 million. Thus, the story of innovation is one of many

failures, learning from the failures and occasionally succeeding, but very, very

rarely hitting the jackpot. Innovation needs to be pursued with single-minded

focus for 10–20 years to achieve even modest success.

The IITs have started along the road to innovation through incubation. The

steps taken so far are only the initial ones. Significant changes in promotion

policies, academic structures, curricula and mindset of the faculty, students and

administration are required. However, the national need for focus on innovation in

the IITs is overwhelming, both in terms of nurturing the spirit of innovation

among students and also in creating new technologies. The benefits to the IITs and

their faculty are also enormous.

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Scaling Engineering Education with Quality in India

India, with over a billion people and with more than half the population under

25 years of age, recognizes that education and development of human resources is

paramount for the continuation of rapid inclusive growth. Over the years,

engineering education has been recognized as a means to transform lives of middle

and lower-middle class people; no doubt there is a huge hunger for quality

engineering education. In the early 1980s, India had very few engineering colleges

and graduated less than 25,000 engineering students every year. Most of these

institutions were owned and funded by the Central or state governments, with the

fees amounting to a small percentage of their total budget. Parents would line up to

try and get their wards admission in this exclusive club.

It was in such a situation that a policy decision was taken, initially by some

southern states but later extended across the country, to allow private engineering

colleges to be set up. This policy led to the mushrooming of private colleges. As

government revenues increased due to a growing economy, it also set up a few

more institutes; however their growth was small. Today there are well over 3000

AICTE-approved engineering colleges and over a million admissions to these

colleges each year. The problem of quantity has been thus solved.

This however is not true of the quality. As one goes beyond the IITs, the quality

deteriorates significantly. There are several Central and state government-funded

as well as private engineering colleges, which have endeavoured to achieve quality.

But it has been a struggle. So when a 16 year-old, focused on high quality

education, seeks admission in an engineering college in India, s/he does not know

where to go. Many who can afford go to colleges in Australia, Europe and USA,

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often preferring even the mediocre ones there. Others prepare for years to get into

IITs, NITs and a few top institutions. Since very few (about 25,000 are able to get

admission to these institutions, the others then reluctantly go to other colleges.

There is an urgent need for India to attend to this problem and provide quality

engineering education to a much larger section of its population. The IITs, being

the premier education institutes in the country, need to play a major role in

overcoming this situation. The Committee has deliberated on what the IITs can

do; it recommends here a plan to enable 100,000 youngsters every year to get

admission in Central government-funded institutions providing quality

engineering education. Hopefully, state governments’ and private efforts would

add to this significantly and result in a few hundred thousand quality seats. If this

happens, it would go a long way in enabling India to provide quality and inclusive

engineering education in India for its youngsters.

The Committee recommends the identification/creation of 50 Central

government-funded institutions (other than the 20 IITs) which could be nurtured

with the help of young IIT faculty and talented youngsters from industry. The

objective will be to achieve quality education at the undergraduate level similar to

what the best IITs today provide.

These 50 institutions could admit about 80,000 engineering students every year

and include NITs, IISERs, NISER, IIITs and certain other institutions currently

supported by the Central government. There are currently about 20 NITs and 10

new ones coming up. Similarly, there are 4 IIITs today and 6 new ones coming up.

There are 5 ISERs and a NISER. There are several other Central government

institutions. Some new ones would also come up. While a lot has been done to

improve the quality of these institutions, they still need a push to go up the quality

ladder. The Ministry of Human Resource Development is willing to provide

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generous funds; but that alone will not improve the quality. The quality of the

faculty needs to improve and the culture of these institutions needs to change.

These institutions need to be nurtured in order to take them to the next level of

quality in undergraduate education and research. Only so much can be done from

within these institutes. There has been some attempt in the past to get IIT faculty

associated with NITs, but this has not helped much. The primary reason for this

has been the association of established senior faculty of the IITs who have very

little time on their hands to nurture these institutions, even if they wanted to.

In recent times, the IITs have occasionally attracted some very high quality

young faculty. They have the energy and will to change the education system. The

proposal is to involve such exceptional faculty in enhancing quality at these

identified institutions. Now, even though they are young, they have their goals cut

out and hands rather full with building their research groups at the IITs and,

maybe, developing relationships with industry. Since they would not ordinarily

involve themselves with identified institutes, the proposal has to be different in

order to attract them.

It is proposed to identify 5 youngsters (about 35 years in age) for association

with each of these identified institutions; the identification will be carried out in

consultation with the Director and Chairman of the Board of Governors (BOG) of

the identified institute. They will be inducted8 into the BOG and Senate of the

institute and tasked with helping drive excellence in these institutions by

leveraging their association with the IITs. One would expect them to9:

a. Help an NIT Director take the institute to the next level of quality

8
Statutes of some of these institutions may not permit it today; they can be invited members, till the statutes are amended.
9
A side benefit of this will be that these young faculty members of the IITs will get trained to become future directors/leaders of
institutes.
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b. Build relationships with the young faculty at NIT, and encourage and guide

them to take their institute to a higher level of quality

c. Nurture the department to which they belong by:

i. Connecting the department to a corresponding IIT department and

building several faculty-to-faculty contacts.

ii. Enabling institute faculty to spend some time at their IIT during

summer or in short-term courses and workshops.

iii. Getting PhDs from their IITs to join as faculty at the institute

iv. Encouraging UG students to join the IITs for PhD.

v. Working out joint research collaboration between the institute and their

IIT. MHRD could provide a sum of up to Rs. 50 lakh to each of the 5

faculty members for such joint projects (a joint proposal will be

evaluated before funding) for 5 years.

d. The term of the Board would be 5 years

e. One would expect the IIT faculty to spend 15 days in a year at a NIT

(including Board, Senate and meetings with faculty)

In a similar manner, a select list of highly talented youngsters from industry

will be prepared by the Chairpersons (and not the staff) of the four industry

associations (CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and NASSCOM) for induction on the

boards of these 50 institutions and to nurture them. These young industry

persons should be highly qualified (a Master’s degree from a reputed institution

is the minimum qualification, and a PhD would be preferable), energetic and

willing to spend at least 15 days in a year in the institute to make a difference.

The Chairman, BOG and the Director of each of these 50 identified institutions

would identify 3 youngsters from the list for induction in the Board to help

nurture these institutions.

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It is hoped that these talented young sons and daughters of India would be able

to take the task of strengthening the undergraduate education in these

institutions by creating a culture where excellence and innovation thrives. The

plan will also build a network for each of the 50 institutions, which could be

leveraged by them.

It is hoped that many state government-funded institutions and private

institutions will take up a similar approach to strengthen their UG

programmes.

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Conclusions and Recommendations

It is clear that India needs a major boost to the quality of higher engineering

education. Frontline research, cutting edge technology, innovation and

entrepreneurship alongside teaching and mentoring are key ingredients of high-

quality education. This is crucial in the context of our national development

aspirations, growing economy with inclusive participation, creating opportunities

for our youth and building our competitiveness in the emerging knowledge-

driven global economy. The IITs are by far the only institutions which can lead

this process on a scale commensurate with the needs of our country. The IITs can

also help several other higher engineering education institutions, particularly

those with the potential to further catalyse this process and enhance our national

capability towards this objective.

The transformation of IITs into institutions that meet such an objective would

mean that the IITs have a talent pool comparable with the best in the world with

capability to liberally support their creativity to realize the fullest potential. It also

presupposes that the IITs have a flexible governance system that can innovate

management support that is specific to the needs of taking new ideas and

initiatives forward. Such an environment also attracts external talent and ideas.

The IITs thus need to further enlarge and strengthen themselves as major

research institutions with focus on the development of high capability human

resource. This inevitably would mean considerable scale up, particularly in terms

of PhD programmes. It is necessary to calibrate this process in a manner that leads

to sustained augmentation of quality. The IITs are presently under considerable

strain on account of rapid expansion with considerable difficulties and backlog in
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terms of faculty recruitment and augmentation of infrastructure. Bridging the gap

between the present state and the end objective with respect to the IITs has to be a

sustained long process spanning 10–15 years with most additional faculty strength

inevitably coming from IIT PhDs since there are few other sources of high quality

engineering PhDs within the country. Even the most aggressive recruitment of

PhDs from foreign universities, which must be pursued vigorously, is unlikely to

be adequate to meet domestic needs in time.

The IITs have distinguished themselves for the quality of their B.Tech degrees.

IIT’s brand image is primarily due to the very distinguished performance of its

B.Tech students. A distinctive feature of the IIT B.Tech programme is its co-

existence with an equally large postgraduate teaching and research domains.

Certain parameters of this successful programme, such as a nearly equal UG : PG

proportion and student : faculty ratio of 10:1, have stood the test of time and

should be preserved.

Apart from the large-scale need for high quality engineering graduates to meet

the needs of various segments of demand for them, there is also the need for high

performing engineering graduates to be a feed into the postgraduate programme,

more particularly the PhD programme. The number of B.Techs graduating from

the IITs is unlikely to be adequate for this purpose. While intense efforts have

been proposed to attract IIT B.Techs into PhD programme, it is also necessary to

focus on other engineering education institutions of good quality (in particular the

NITs, ISERs, etc.) to become feeders for quality graduate engineers into PhD

programmes of IITs.

To support a significantly expanded and high-quality PhD programme, the

research infrastructure at the IITs needs considerable augmentation. While doing

so, the research has to be broad-based to cover various dimensions like research

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on the frontiers; coordinated research involving several groups to address major

areas of national priority, research to meet the needs of industry and the society,

participation in the R&D needs of industry and of Government, etc. This would

create holistic learning opportunities for students by exposing them to realistic

hands-on experience and at the same time bringing significant resources into the

IITs over a period of time.

Such an environment needs to be richly endowed and liberally supported.

More important, it should have its own governance structure that can flexibly

address the needs in specific cases without being constrained by the inflexibilities

of governmental working. This is a prerequisite for attracting and retaining talent,

which is at the core of the performance of such institutions.

It is proposed that the IITs be financially supported by the Government

through plan budget to meet their infrastructure needs as well as the research

needs of the Government. Research students, both at the masters and doctoral

levels, should also be supported by the Government on a per student basis. The

IITs should recover the full operational cost of education through fees and not

derive any input through non-plan budget of the Government. A special and

hassle-free bank loan arrangement has been recommended as part of the

admission process to support and facilitate access to all eligible and deserving

students.

We feel that it should be possible to make the IITs administratively and

financially autonomous to realize the objectives enumerated above and reach the

full potential of the IIT system. Key recommendations being made by the

Committee include (i) self-empowered Boards comprising all key stakeholders,

(ii) creating a system of mandatory peer reviews, (iii) mutually agreed respective

commitments between the Government and IIT on the basis of an annual MoU

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duly overseen by the IIT Council, and (iv) transparency in working. The

Government’s commitment to support research at the IITs to their maximum

potential is an important assumption that forms the basis of the Committee’s

recommendations. The Committee also feels that all the recommendations should

be considered as part of a single package and accepted or rejected as a whole, and

not treated in parts.

The specific recommendations of the Committee are given below:

IITs as Research Institutions

1. Make IITs the Primary Research Institutes, with a focus on high quality

frontier research and technology development within the Indian context.

2. Scale up PhD students from less than 1000 PhD graduates per year today to

10,000 PhD graduates by 2020-25 from about 20 IITs (15 existing IITs plus

5 new to be set up over the next several years in states where there are no

IITs).

3. Scaling PhD scholars’ admissions to include enabling bright UGs being

admitted for PhD at the end of their third year, teachers from other

institutes joining for PhD and significant numbers from industry joining

sponsored/part-time PhD programme. It is strongly recommended that a

fellowship scheme covering all categories of PhD students is in place.

4. The faculty: student ratio is 1:10; while the UG : PG ratio is close to 1:1.

5. Each IIT should aim to acquire technology leadership in at least 3 to 4 areas.

6. Research groups in one or more IITs to take up large projects together to

address major national challenges

7. Set up research parks at each of the IITs similar to the IIT-M Research Park.

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8. Enable Ministries to set up R&D labs in IITs to drive Technology

Development relevant to national programmes being piloted by them.

9. Large-scale Executive M.Tech training programmes for industry jointly

conducted with the IITs using video links.

Financial Autonomy and Governance

10. Government to financially support research at the IITs in the plan mode to

realize their full potential for national needs in terms of research, technology

and human resource in science, technology and entrepreneurship. For this

purpose an annual outlay on the basis of Rs 1.5 lakhs per student should be

made available to each of the established IITs. For the new IITs which are at

present in project mode and do not have any significant endowment, an

endowment grant of Rs. 50 crore per IIT (over next 5 years) may be made

available to enable a degree of flexibility in academic activities.

The IITs need to expand infrastructure to support a scaled up academic and

research programme as recommended above. This would also require

capital funds for infrastructure expansion from the Government at Rs. 20

lakh per additional student. There is also a need to rejuvenate the existing

ageing infrastructure at Rs. 5 lakh per student as existing on March 2011.

Funds allotted for expansion taking place currently to accommodate OSC

recommendations have been found to be inadequate and need to be

increased to Rs 15 lakh per student.

11. MHRD to pay the full operating cost of education plus a scholarship for all

postgraduate students (PhD, MS and M.Tech) as well as for undergraduate

students from reserved category and economically weaker sections. Some

merit-cum-means scholarship should also be made available to needy and

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deserving students. A hassle free loan facility not requiring any collateral or

parental guarantee to be made a part of the admission process. No student

should be denied education in an IIT after getting admission due to lack of

means.

12. Except for legacy payments like old pension, the IITs are to be financially

independent of the non-plan budget of the Government. Fees are to be fixed

at a level to cover operational expenditure.

13. IITs are to be totally independent of MHRD for their governance and

management functions. They are to be run by their Boards with all rules and

regulations made by their Boards. This includes management structure,

rules and regulations for faculty/staff hiring and remuneration, approving of

budgets and fixing fees, expenditure rules and processes and audit processes.

C&AG audit to continue based on financial rules formulated by the Boards.

14. IITs need to enhance their financial inputs through donations. The donor

should be eligible for a full deduction of their contribution against their

income under the Income Tax Act as is currently allowed for any grants

made to Universities in India under Sec 35AC of the Income Tax Act 1961.

A notification or an amendment is essential in the law to include IITs in this

list.

15. IIT Boards will select and appoint a Director using a search committee

process. IIT Boards will nominate the Chairman to be appointed after

approval of the IIT Council.

16. The Board will consist of one representative from the Central government,

one from the state government, three industry persons selected from a panel

recommended by the Chairmen of CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and

NASSCOM (in a joint meeting), three scientists selected from a panel

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recommended by four Indian Academy Presidents (INSA, NASI, INAE,

IASC) (in a joint meeting), two alumni (who are not IIT employees), two

faculty from the institute, one eminent citizen appointed by the Board, the

Chairman and the Director. The panels recommended by industry

association Chairmen and Presidents of Academy will need approval of the

IIT Council.

17. The IITs will sign a MoU with MHRD every year in line with the aims and

policies of the Government of India. The MoU should include budgets and

fees approved by its Board, capital expenditure (plan money), pension

money and scholarships that MHRD would provide and expansion needs (if

any). It would also include aims and goals set by the IIT for the year. The

MoU would need to be reviewed and approved by the IIT Council.

18. The Visitor may require the IIT Council to appoint an external review

committee for each IIT once in 5 years. The report of the review committee

and action taken is to be made public. The Government may require the

IITs to take appropriate action in light of the findings of the review

committee.

19. The emergency powers of the Visitor over the IITs are to continue.

Faculty

20. Scaling up of quality faculty is the key. It is required to scale up to 16,000

faculty members in about 10 years (from a little over 4000 currently).

21. Part-time/Adjunct faculty from industry, visiting faculty and post-doctoral

in IITs to be strengthened.

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22. Faculty pay-scales and remuneration is to be decided by the respective

Boards. Pay-scales have to be decided within the financial constraints of the

institute.

23. The Board of each IIT will decide on the roles, responsibilities and

appraisal of their faculty. Faculty roles include teaching, research,

technology development and industrial consultancy, as well as

policy/standards development. Besides, they may be involved in

administration. It is suggested that each faculty sets their yearly goals and

the time they would spend in these 5 activities. At the end of each year, they

would carry out a self-appraisal and provide evidence of their work.

Departmental committees will review the appraisals for Assistant Professors

and an institute-level committee will review the appraisals for others. Once

in 5 years, an external review of these appraisals will be carried out.

24. Today, the IITs and their faculty do not have the experience and expertise

to take into account the “technological development and industrial

consultancy roles” played by the faculty during their appraisals and

evaluation. This needs to be strengthened.

Role of Staff

25. The IIT Boards will decide on staff numbers, remuneration and pay-scales.

26. It is suggested that most staff members be hired as outsourced staff on

contract. Young staff members who start their career at the IITs and work

for there 5–10 years would be well trained to be absorbed in industry. This

way the IITs would get young motivated staff members.

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

27. The IITs must recognize that technology development, innovation and

nurturing entrepreneurship are some of their key tasks.

28. The IITs must also recognize that Innovation thrives when faculty,

experienced industry persons and students interact in formal and informal

environments. The creation of such an ecosystem is a necessity.

29. The B.Tech and M.Tech Curriculum is very structured and does not allow

creative students to do courses across departments, take off for a semester

for a start-up venture and come back or take up some project work instead

of a course. The curriculum is designed for large numbers of ordinary

students and not for exceptional students. This needs correction. Similarly,

the IITs do not easily allow students of one branch to do MS/PhD in

another. Even while hiring faculty, they look for B.Techs only in the

discipline they are to teach. The system needs to adopt greater flexibility to

provide greater choice to students so that they are better prepared for a

chosen career option.

30. IIT faculty members have poor commercial understanding. This comes in

the way of technology development or innovation. Greater interaction with

industry in the product development mode should be adopted.

31. Entrepreneurship is not about space or computers; it requires nurturing a

business. Only faculty who understand this should drive entrepreneurship

cells.

Scaling Engineering Education with Quality in India

32. India, with its billion people, has huge demand for quality engineering

education. Unfortunately, even though more than a million students are
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admitted to engineering colleges today, except for the IITs and some other

institutions, the quality of education in most other engineering colleges is

not of the desired quality. The Committee recommends a plan to create at

least 100,000 quality engineering graduates per year through Central

government-funded institutions alone. Hopefully, the state governments

and private efforts would add to this significantly.

33. The Committee recommends identification/creation of 50 Central

government-funded institutions (other than the 20 IITs) which could be

nurtured with the help of young IIT faculty. These would include NITs,

ISERs, NISER, IIIT and certain other institutions. This would be done

through 5 enthusiastic young faculty members with a proven level of

excellence for each such institution, who would be identified in consultation

with the Director and Chairman of the Board of Governors for induction in

the Board and Senate of these institutions. They would be tasked with

driving excellence in these institutions by leveraging the IITs. An outlay of

Rs. 50 lakh each should be made available to such faculty to support research

in the institute with IIT collaboration.

34. With their advent at a historic cusp in the evolution of technical education

in India, the new IITs present a unique opportunity for a major upward

movement in the IIT system. Without the legacy of many decades of

established tradition, a new IIT can boldly experiment with radically new

ways of teaching, research and administration. In teaching, the shortage of

experienced faculty could be turned into a benefit by judicious use of

multimedia and networking technologies to augment the classroom

experience. In research, apart from setting up state-of-the-art facilities, the

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new IITs can build collaborative relationships with like-minded institutions

around the world. (Also see Appendix VII.)

In the established IITs, the Directors and Board spend much of their time

and energy dealing with vexatious issues such as service conditions of long-

time staff. This distracts from their ability to spend quality time on academic

innovations and impact. The new IITs could devise administrative and

staffing structures that avoid these vexatious issues.

The Board, the Director and the faculty of the new IITs should be selected

for their openness to new ideas and should be encouraged to experiment

with teaching, research and administration.

The new IITs have a unique potential to catalyse the transformation of the

IIT system. Hence, they need special treatment to ensure that they realize

this potential by building on the strengths of the IIT system while avoiding

its weaknesses.

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Appendix-I : Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee, Its Constitution and Functioning
F.NO.19-3/2009-TS 1
Government of India
Ministry of Human Resourse Development
Department of Higher Education
Technical Section-1
Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi
3rd February, 2010

Subject: Constitution of a Committee to recommend autonomy measures to facilitate
IITs scaling greater heights.

In the 40th Meeting of Council of IITs held under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble
HRM on 19th October, 2009 (refer minutes issued vide F. No. 19-3/2009-TS. 1 dated
24th November 2009), it was decided that a committee, comprising Dr. Anil
Kakodkar, Chairman, BoG, IIT Bombay, and four other members to be nominated
by him, may be constituted for suggesting a roadmap for the autonomy and the
future of the IITs as world class institutions for research and higher learning.

2. Accordingly, it has been decided to constitute a Committee under the
Chairmanship of Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, BoG, IIT Bombay, to suggest a
roadmap for the autonomy and future of the IITs. Composition of the Committee
will be as under:

1. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman
Chairman, BoG, IIT Bombay

2. Shri T.V. Mohandas Pai, Member
Member of the Board &
Director
Human Resources,
Education & Research and Admn,
Infosys,
Plot No.44, Electronic City,
Hosur Road, Bangalore - 560 100

3. Shri Hari Bhartia, Member
Co-Chairman, MD of Jubilant Organosys,

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1-A, Sector 16-A, Institutional Area,
Noida- 201031, U.P.

4. Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Member
Deptt. of Electrical Engineering,
IIT Madras, Chennai

5. Dr. K. Mohandas, Member
Vice-Chancellor,
Kerala University of Health Sciences,
Thrissur, Kerala

6. Shri Ashok Thakur, Member
Additional Secretary, MHRD Secretary

The Terms of Reference of the Committee are as follows:

1. To suggest a roadmap for strengthening Financial, Administrative and
Academic autonomy of the IITs;

2. The issue of autonomy is closely linked with the capacity of institutions to
raise their own resources including through increase in fees in the IITs albeit
in a gradual manner. While doing so interest of the weaker sections of the
society could be taken care of. The Committee is to suggest a "means-blind
system" wherein scholarships are provided to the deserving, and a system of
education loans dovetailed into it. For the students who continue to research
and take up teaching assignments as a career, a system of interest loan
scheme could be explored;

3. The Committee to suggest ways and means to retain/attract top B.Tech
students within the IIT System and outside to Postgraduate and PhD
programmes. Institutes should be incentivised by way of higher funding
based upon the number of Postgraduate students enrolled and number of
PhDs awarded each year;

4. The Committee could consider the issue of faculty induction and
development. Measures to improve the strength of IIT faculty may be
suggested for adoption and implementation;
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5. To suggest a self primed system within the IITs to achieve the optimal level
of intake of students each year (UG and PG), which but for the MHRD
initiated OSC expansion programme has remained stagnant. The
Committee could explore the possibility of releasing funds to the institute on
per student basis to incentivise growth;

6. To suggest means to raise the resources/corpus of the IITs through research
project from the Government, Industry, Consultancy, Donations from
alumni, etc., and to explore the possibility of matching grants from the
Ministry;

7. During the XI Plan period, the IITs have been in an expansive mode in that
it doubled its numbers from 7 to 15. The Committee to take stock of the
present expansion programme and also suggest the future course of action
in terms of inclusion, expansion and excellence in the XII Plan period and
beyond;

8. The Committee will also look into possible synergies that could be
developed from not only interaction and collaboration amongst the IITs,
e.g., consortium of IITs to take up research projects etc., but also linking up
with other National Institutes like IIMs, IISERs, IISC, IIITs, NITs, etc. The
Committee will also look into the role that IITs have been playing and could
play in the future to increase its role as a human resource and technology
provider in support of inclusive national development in a rapidly
developing/growing economy; and

9. The Committee would also review a few similar exercises that have taken
place elsewhere in the world to understand the process involved to arrive at
credible recommendations. For this purpose, the Committee could invite a
few eminent leaders from some of the successful institutions for discussions
and advice. The Committee would also consult different stakeholders, e.g.,
IIT Management, Faculty, Alumni, Industry, S&T agencies, Technical
Education experts, etc. The Committee may also take into account Prof. P
Rama Rao.
Committee recommendations and others while working out a roadmap for
IITs to scale new heights.

175

(Ashok Thakur)
Additional Secretary, MHRD

Distribution

1. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, BoG, IIT Bombay 2. All members of the
Committee 3. Director of all IITs

Copy to: PS to HRM/ PS to MoS/Sr. PPS to Secretary(HE)

176

Meetings of the Committee

The Committee met 10 times during the period February 2010 to December

2010. At least one meeting was scheduled at each of the 5 established IITs. The

Committee made use of their visit to each IIT campus to meet and get the views of

a section of its faculty. All meetings were of 1 day duration except the 2-day 7th

meeting that took place at Delhi. The Committee met once at the Infosys Campus

at Mysore. The Committee also made a 5-day visit to China. Details of the

meetings are as follows:
No. Date Place Remarks
1. 05 Apr 2010 IIT Bombay Session with Directors of IITs
2. 28 Apr 2010 IIT Bombay
3. 06 Jun 2010 IIT Madras Session with faculty of IIT Madras
4. 26 Jun 2010 Infosys Campus, Mysore
Session with faculty of IIT Kharagpur
5. 10 Jul 2010 IIT Kharagpur
Session with Directors of IITs
Meeting with Secretary DST
6. 11 Aug 2010 IIT Delhi
Session with faculty of IIT Delhi
3 Sep 2010 Delhi
Sessions with various ministries and
7.
industry federations
4 Sep 2010 CSIR Vigyan Kendra
8. 24 Sep 2010 IIT Bombay Session with faculty of IIT Bombay
9. 18 Oct 2010 IIT Bombay
10. 03-06 Nov 2010 China visit
11. 29 Nov 2010 IIT Kanpur Session with faculty of IIT Kanpur
12. 12 Dec 2010 IIT Bombay Committee meeting and review
Review of the report and session with
13. 01 Jan 2011 IIT Bombay
directors
Review of the report and meeting with
14. 15 Jan 2011 IIT Delhi
Honourable Minister of HRD.
15. 02 Feb 2011 IIT Madras
16. 20 Feb 2011 IIT Bombay

177

The Terms of Reference of the Committee and their compliance are as follows:

ToR ToR in details (with key terms in bold) Compliance
No.
To suggest a roadmap for strengthening Financial, Totality of the report outlines a roadmap and a 15-
Administrative and Academic autonomy of the year plan to take IITs to next logical phase – it
IITs; includes expansion in number of IITs, increase in
1. graduating UGs and PGs, Research that will cater to
frontier areas as well as of local relevance and much
more to be realized from an accountable IIT
system.
The issue of autonomy is closely linked with the Raise their own resources - Increase in fees in the
capacity of institutions to raise their own IITs albeit in a gradual manner.
resources, including through increase in fees in Chapter 4, Section 4.3 : Key recommendations on
the IITs albeit in a gradual manner. While doing Fee & Scholarships.
so, interest of the weaker sections of the society Interest of the weaker sections/scholarships to the
could be taken care of. The Committee is to suggest deserving.
a "means-blind system" wherein scholarships are Chapter-4, Section 4.3 Full fee support from Govt
provided to the deserving, and a system of to UG students from weaker sections/ deserving
education loans dovetailed into it. For students UG students as well as to all PG students. Section
2. who continue to research and take up teaching 4.8 : Introduction to Special Loan Scheme & also
assignments as a career, a system of interest loan Appendix-V Loan Scheme for IIT Students from
scheme could be explored; SBI, Appendix-VI Educational Loan Scheme by
Indian Bank’s Association
Students who continue to research and take up
teaching assignments as a career.
Chapter 4, Section 4.8 : Introduction to Special
Loan Scheme/incentives for students to pursue PG
studies and take up career as faculty/researcher in
key national programmes.
The Committee to suggest ways and means to Retain/attract top B.Tech students within the IIT
retain/attract top B.Tech students within the IIT System and outside to Postgraduate and PhD
System and outside to Postgraduate and PhD programmes
programmes. Institutes should be incentivized by Chapter 3, Section 3.2
3.
way of higher funding based upon the number of Higher funding based upon the number of
Postgraduate students enrolled and number of Postgraduate student enrolled and number of
PhDs awarded each year; PhDs awarded each year;
Chapter 4, Section 4.3
The Committee could consider the issue of faculty Faculty induction and development
induction and development. Measures to Chapter 5
4.
improve the strength of IIT faculty may be Measures to improve the strength of IIT faculty
suggested for adoption and implementation; Chapter 5
To suggest a self primed system within the IITs to Optimal level of Intake
5. achieve the optimal level of intake of students each Chapter 3, Section 3.2.1. Recommendation for
year (UG and PG), which but for the MHRD 10,000 PhD per year with commensurate changes

178

initiated OSC expansion programme has remained in other numbers keeping time tested optimum
stagnant. The Committee could explore the UG:PG ratio of 1:1 and student:faculty ratio of 10:1.
possibility of releasing funds to the institute on per
student basis to incentivize growth; Funds to the institute on per student basis to
incentivize growth;
Chapter 4, Section 4.3 on Financial Autonomy
To suggest means to raise the resources/corpus of Raise Funds :
the IITs through research project from the Government & Industry:
Government, Industry, Consultancy, Donations Chapter 3, Section 3.7 : Idea of encouraging and
from alumni, etc., and to explore the possibility of enabling various government departments and
matching grants from the Ministry; ministries to set up R&D labs at IITs
Chapter 3, Section 3.8 : Idea of Executive M.Tech
Programme, also see Appendix-IV
6. Chapter 7 : Innovation & Entrepreneurship, idea of
Research Parks therein
Donations from Alumni, etc.
Chapter 4, Section 4.6 specifically encourages IITs
to start an aggressive drive to get endowments,
scholarship grants and funds from their Alumni
and other donors to meet at least 10–15% of their
needs on an annual basis over time.
During the XI Plan period, the IITs have been in an Take stock of the present (OSC) expansion
expansive mode in that it doubled its numbers programme
from 7 to 15. The Committee to take stock of the Chapter 4, Sections 4.6 and 4.10 makes specific
present expansion programme and also suggest recommendations on funding related OSC
the future course of action in terms of inclusion, expansion.
7.
expansion and excellence in the XII Plan period Course of action in terms of inclusion, expansion
and beyond; and excellence
Chapter 3, Section 3.3. Addresses Diversity on
Campus and issue related under representation of
women in UG programme at IITs.
The Committee will also look into possible Linking up with other National Institutes like
synergies that could be developed from not only IIMs, IISERs, IISC., IIITs, NITs
interaction and collaboration amongst the IITs, Chapter 3, Section 3.4 specifically recommends
e.g., consortium of IITs to take up research projects research groups drawn across all institutions IITs,
etc., but also linking up with other National NITs, IISERs, IISc, etc. to join hands to address key
Institutes like IIMs, IISERs, IISC, IIITs, NITs,
8. national challenge
etc. The Committee will also look into the role that
IITs have been playing and could play in the future
Increase its role as a human resource and
to increase its role as a human resource and
technology provider in support of inclusive
technology provider in support of inclusive
national development
national development in a rapidly
Chapter 7 on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
developing/growing economy; and
Chapter 8 on Scaling Engineering education

179

The Committee would also review a few similar Review a few similar exercises that have taken
exercises that have taken place elsewhere in the place elsewhere in the world
world to understand the process involved to arrive Chapter 1, Section 1.11 on China visit
at credible recommendations. For this purpose, the
Committee could invite a few eminent leaders from Consult different stakeholders
some of the successful institutions for discussions Chapter 1, Section 1.10. Stakeholder’s voice
9. and advice. The Committee would also consult Appendix-II : Online survey
different stakeholders, e.g., IIT Management,
Faculty, Alumni, Industry, S&T agencies, Technical Take into account Prof. P Rama Rao Committee
Education experts, etc. The Committee may also recommendations
take into account Prof. P Rama Rao Committee Chapter 1 : Introduction
recommendations and others while working out a
roadmap for IITs to scale new heights.

180

Appendix II : Details of Online Questionnaire, Analysis and Results

The Kakodkar Committee conducted an online survey to seek stakeholder

inputs. The survey was a questionnaire comprising 58 questions grouped under 12

themes. All questions had a text box where respondents could express their

detailed opinion if they so desired. Forty-six questions, in addition, had radio-

buttons for respondents to quickly indicate their reaction by choosing one of 3

options like Agree/Disagree/No Comments. The 12 questions that did not have

radio-buttons were question nos. 4, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 24, 25, 29, 43, 44 and 52.

Radio-button responses are readily available for interpretation as to what

percentage agreed, disagreed, etc. Textual responses had to go through a detailed

content analysis to extract the general sentiments expressed.

The online survey opened on 1 July 2010 on an experimental basis and was

announced to all stakeholders through an e-mail campaign on 3 July 2010. The

response was overwhelming and the survey finally closed on 31 July 2010.

The online survey offered an opening page with a short message on its overall

objective for those signing in. The respondents were then requested to categorize

themselves into one of the 13 categories. Each respondent could fall into more

than one category. During the 1-month run of the survey, 5170 people visited the

site. Of these, only 3755 provided inputs. The number of responses in each of the

13 categories is shown below. (It may be noted that the sum of all individual

categories will not match the total responses as each respondent could belong to

more than 1 category). The respondents were requested to categorize themselves.

181

No of
Category
responses

All categories put together 3755
1 Alumni of IIT 2050
2 Industry that hires IIT students 356
3 Industry that sponsors funded research at any
86
IIT
4 Industry that hires consultants from IIT
82
faculty
5 Industry at large 167
6 Educationist 214
7 Government official 65
8 Faculty of IIT 498
9 Current UG student of IIT 1658
10 Current PG student of IIT 537
11 Current PhD student of IIT 479
12 Public at large 231
13 Staff of IIT 120

182

The table below lists the 12 themes, questions within each theme and summary of radio button response and text responses.

Summary of responses indicated Summary of responses indicated
Theme Question
through radio button through text box
1. 'Brand IIT' has been a good thing  94% of all stakeholders feel “Brand IIT has
1. IIT as a

2. IITs are NOT doing enough to sustain been a good thing”. Only 81% of IIT staff IITs not promoting/sustaining “Brand IIT” adequately
brand

and promote the brand feel so. and not optimally leveraging it (Discordant note: Not
3. IITs are not fully/optimally leveraging  57% of all stakeholders feel IITs are not world-class, brand due to alumni success).
the brand. doing enough to sustain the brand.

183

4. What steps/means to be taken to
benchmark academic standards for
becoming world-class institutions
5. IITs are adequately addressing
challenges like dwindling faculty,  Not adequately addressing emerging challenges like
foreign universities setting up shop in dwindling faculty, and private and overseas players
our country, private universities, etc. entering the arena. Remedy: Aggressive recruiting,
6. IITs quickly adopt and offer new Only 25% of all stakeholders feel IITs are doing increased salaries, accountability, performance-
courses, responding to advancing enough to address challenges like dwindling based incentives, better campus amenities.
knowledge and technological changes faculty, foreign universities coming to India,  Promptly respond to advancing knowledge and
such as green technologies, private universities etc. This feeling is even technology by starting appropriate courses.
nanotechnology, biotechnology, etc.?  Should innovate to attract experienced industry
stronger with only 12% of “industry hiring
7. Should funding be based/enhanced personnel for research; should start industry
IITians” and also “public at large” feeling so. But
2. IIT as an academic institution

on the number of PG students and oriented courses (e.g., D.Engg.).
PhD scholars enrolled, and PhDs 40% of PG and PhD students felt that IITs are  Should not diversify to include non-technical
awarded? coping. disciplines (Arts, Law, Medicine) – brand dilution -
8. What steps/strategy should the IITs but may partner with such institutions with similar
adopt to retain/attract top B.Tech 57% of all stakeholders feel IITs are agile in ethos. (Staff voted for diversification).
students from within and outside the updating curriculum to keep pace with changing  Several suggestions for achieving “world-class
IIT system for PG and PhD times. But this dips to 33% to 40% for industry status”:- Improved infrastructure, curricula,
programmes? interacting with IITs. industry relevant research, international
9. Should IITs innovate to attract accreditation, admitting international students,
experienced industry personnel for  60% of all stakeholders feel funding should flexibility in choice of branches/timing, etc.
research? be linked to postgraduate activity.  Suggestions for attracting/retaining B.Tech
10. Is there a need for innovative  83% of all stakeholders feel IITs must students for PG and PhD programmes: Renowned
programmes such as Doctorate in innovate to attract industry personnel in faculty, “world class” research projects, cutting edge
Engineering (D. Engg.) especially research. and industry oriented research, better infrastructure,
aimed for professionals from  Only 40% feel IITs should expand into art, attractive scholarships, international exposure
industry? law, medicine, etc. (through research, student exchange, conference
11. Is the move to expand to include non- attendance, etc.), reconnecting with original mentor
technical areas such as Arts, Law, institutions (established IITs).
Medicine, etc. justified?
12. Should IITs become full-fledged
Universities by such
diversification/inclusion, or retain its
present character?

184

Suggestions for enhancing the quantum and quality of
research and their focus:
 On Focus of Research: Both basic and applied
research (industry oriented, India centric, societal
and environmental issues), interdisciplinary and
3. IIT as a scientific research institution

inter-institutional (other IITs, CSIR Labs, etc.),
each IIT focusing on specific areas.
 On Sources of Funding: Government, Industry,
13. What is and should be the focus of
International agencies and alumni, Tuition fee
scientific research at IITs?
increase.
14. How to ensure adequate funds to do
 Student centric measures: More PG and PhD
world-class research? These questions did not have radio-buttons.
programmes, reduction of current overemphasis on
15. What needs to be done to enable IITs
UG programme, encouraging UG research, NITs
for doing path-breaking scientific
taking over UG programmes and/or new IITs
research?
becoming performance based research institutions
(Faculty).
 Institutional and Administrative measures: Lab.
modernization, collaboration with alumni and
industry, better student-teacher ratio, creation of
research director and permanent non-teaching
positions (Semi-privatization of labs.).

185

 Should play a larger role in developing technical
16. Do IITs need to play a larger role in
education in India.
shaping the technical education of the
4. IIT as a technical /technological institute
 Should focus and develop in selected areas (water
country (like AICTE) in general?
resource management, urban planning) without
17. How can IITs play a part in uplifting
 64% feel IITs must play a role in shaping compromising on basic research. Government may
the general technical skills in the
technical education in the country. set up “centres” in selected areas.
country?
 80% feel IITs must focus on select areas like  Students (all categories) should have more
18. Should IITs focus on developing skills
water resource, urban planning, etc. needed industrial training/exposure.
in selected areas like water resource
by the country.  Should focus on generating leadership in key
management, urban planning,
 Only 16% feel IIT students have enough areas/problems relevant to the country.
structural consultancy, hardware
industry exposure.  Suggestions to uplift general technical skills in the
development, etc. in the country?
 75% feel even PG and PhD students must be country: Training teachers for improving technical
19. Do IIT students have enough industry
exposed to industry. education, distant learning programmes, web-based
exposure?
classes/lectures, producing top-class PhDs and
20. Is there a need for industrial training
holding workshops for schools and engineering
for the PGs and research scholars of
colleges.
IITs?

186

21. Have IITs played a significant part in
technology R&D?
22. Have they played a significant part as
a provider of commercially
viable/successful technologies?
 No significant contribution to technology R&D or
23. Are there effective, industry friendly
in providing viable technologies.
mechanisms in place for technology
 No effective technology transfer/commercialization
transfer and commercialization –
mechanisms.

5. IITs as Technology Provider

such as assessing the potential of Only 40% feel IITs have played a role in
 Reasons for the overall low
innovation, suitability for the technology R&D.
contribution/involvement: Poor marketing of IITs’
intended purpose, readiness for  Only 28% feel IITs have created
capabilities and achievements, lack of faith of
exploitation, technology proving viable/successful technologies.
government and industry, blind conviction in foreign
facility/incubation centre?  Only 23% feel IITs have put in place
collaboration, over-emphasis on publications as
24. How much detailed engineering and mechanisms for technology
against patents.
other start-up issues can/should be transfer/commercialization.
 Suggestions for improvement on this score: Setting
handled by the IITs?  Only 20% are concerned that aggressive
up industrial parks (IIT-M), faculty heading
25. What follow-up help can be given innovation-fostering activity will hinder
national labs, industry oriented education, etc.
after transfer takes place – such as the academics.
 Only 19% felt that an aggressive innovation-
innovation team being assigned to
fostering programme will hinder academic
industry for initial handholding -
activities; 33% of faculty thinks that it might.
How should such an exercise be
funded and administered with
minimal or no ”red-tapism”?
26. Will such an aggressive innovation-
fostering programme hinder
academic activities?

187

27. Are IIT students trained in creative

6. IIT as an Instrument of Creativity and
thinking? If not, should they be?
28. Should there be a formal course that
covers lateral thinking, mind
 Stakeholders are equally divided on the issue  Creative thinking is necessary for nation building,
mapping, brain storming and idea
that creative thinking is lacking in IIT but a formal course is not the answer; opinion
generation, etc.?
students. divided on IIT students’ creative thinking ability.
Innovation

29. What steps, if any, are already in
 70% feel that formal courses must inculcate  Suggestions for IPR generation and protection:
place/to be adopted for IPR
creative/lateral thinking in students. Easily accessible IPR offices with knowledgeable and
generation and protection?
 72% want effective machinery towards IPR interested faculty heading them, law courses with
30. Should there be plans for establishing
protection, while only 5% oppose it, with focus on IPR, courses in research ethics, programmes
effective machinery for IPR
23% not having an opinion. on the logistics of patenting, etc.
protection,
exploitation/commercialization
(Single Window) like the Office of
Technology Transfer of Caltech?
 60% feel IITs are a good place to work in (faculty
31. Is IIT a great place to work in? and students - 80%); but could be better if
 Only 60% feel IITs are a great place to work
7. IIT as an employer/organization

32. Should IITs recruit or co-opt foreign organizational decay (politics, groupism, power
in. But 80% of faculty, staff and PG students
faculty? (i.e., attract international play) is prevented, and infrastructure and pay
feel so.
faculty like US universities for packets improved.
 90% feel IITs should improve diversity in
improving the diversity of faculty)?  Organizational reforms to make IITs “simple,
faculty with international faculty.
33. Are IITs bureaucratic organizations - nimble and sharp” with more autonomy, and
 Stakeholders are equally divided on the issue
huge, unwieldy and with outdated decoupling of academic and administrative duties.
that IITs are bureaucratic with outdated
systems?  Alumni are the most enthusiastic votaries for
systems.
34. Do IITs require organizational “change”; but no comments from the staff or
 72% recommend organizational reforms.
reforms? government officials.
 84% feel IITs need modern systems of
35. Do IITs need to be agile and have  Foreign faculty will improve diversity and quality
management of humans, finance and
modern systems of management- (90%), but teaching style and pay disparity could
materials.
human, finance, materials, etc.? become issues.

188

 63% felt that the society is benefited, but only to the
extent of having a large institution in the
36. Is the society and neighbourhood neighbourhood (Livelihood through services to the
8. IIT as a societal organization campus residents, etc.).
reaping any benefit with the presence
of IITs?  63% subscribe to concepts like “corporate social
 63% feel society is reaping any kind of
37. Should they not be benefited? responsibility” initiatives (teaching in the villages,
benefit from the IITs. But surprisingly, only
38. Should IITs have some initiatives helping other colleges, helping in pollution control,
50% expect such benefits.
similar to the Corporate Social green technologies and SMEs).
 63% subscribe to concepts like “corporate
Responsibility of companies?  IITs should engage with society through local
social responsibility” initiatives from IITs.
39. Is there a need for IITs to utilize their governments, NGOs, etc. to address local problems
 84% urge IITs to engage with society’s
expertise in getting involved in (sanitation, traffic, etc.).
problems like sanitation, traffic, etc.
solving local problems such as  Main aim is to produce good engineers and
sanitation, water management, traffic, scientists; benefit to the immediate locality
etc., of their vicinity? incidental; aim to be an international organization
(3%, mostly alumni)

189

 Should act as a catalyst for economic development
(incubating knowledge enterprises, collaborating
with industry to solve problems, by producing
engineers and a talent base to solve real and
practical industry problems).
 Most stressed the need to address real-life
problems/ challenges faced by society, incubation
9. IIT as a catalyst for economic development

of enterprises that cater to societal problems, even
if economic development is not the immediate
40. Should IITs focus/play a greater role result.
on being a catalyst for economic  Focus on specialized or complex problems which
 85% feel IITs should play a greater role as a
development through incubating industry cannot solve. But most felt that IITs are
catalyst for economic development.
knowledge enterprises? not easily accessible/responsive (except to ”big”
 An overwhelming 93% feel IITs must engage
41. Should IITs engage in solving industries), and some also doubted IIT faculty’s
with industry to solve industry’s problems.
problems for industry? ability/expertise to solve industry problems.
 Only 45% feel that IITs are accessible to
42. Are IITs accessible to industry for  Encourage small industries to consult IITs’
industry for problem solving. But 72% of
their needs? expertise with active student and faculty
faculty think they are accessible
43. What is the expectation of the participation, advertise the resources available in
industry from IITs? IITs (Students’ perspective).
 Industry’s expectations from IITs:
 Solutions to industry problems
 Foster innovative ideas for futuristic
technologies
 Provide high quality and competent employees/
manpower
 Develop long-term associations and better
relations.

190

44. What should be the primary focus of
IITs - teaching, research, consultancy
or others?
45. Have they been able to formulate  34% felt teaching, research and consultancy should
their vision, mission and objectives  Only 29% feel IITs have formulated their be the primary focus, with consultancy given lesser
with shared clarity? vision, mission with shared clarity, but most weight-age. Majority opined that teaching should
46. Should IITs cooperate, complement felt they have not been implemented. be the main focus for UGs (large scope for
10. General

or compete with each other?  87% feel IITs must complement and improvement in the quality of teaching), and
47. Should/could the IITs play a lead role cooperate with each other, and not compete. research for PGs. (Two categories of faculty, one
in forming consortia among  87% feel IITs, IISER, NITs and IIMs must all only for teaching, the other mostly for research;
themselves and with IISERs, NITs, join hands to take up large national projects. lone, but interesting, response)
IIMs to take up large research  Only 36% think IITs should set up campuses  (Framing of the question on formation of consortia
development, environmental outside India. lacked focus on details; hence responses were
protection, infrastructure ambiguous, more like wishful thinking)
development, etc.?
48. Should IITs set up campuses outside
India?

191

 The large majority felt that IITs are not adequately
funded; but voted for financial independence from
the government. (Staff believe otherwise)
49. Should IITs depend solely on  Most felt that IITs are not doing enough to raise
government funds? funds. About 46 strategic permutations have been
50. Are they adequately funded? suggested for raising resources/corpus. This
51. Should/could the IITs strive for included:
 Only 11% think IITs must solely depend on
financial independence and  Effective technology transfer mechanisms and
government funds.
autonomy? IP revenue generation (majority) through
 27% feel IITs are adequately funded. But
52. If so, measures/strategy to be adopted Technology Transfer Offices with the
69% of IIT staff feel that funding is adequate.
for raising resources/corpus from assistance of management schools (internal
 66% feel IITs must strive for financial
industry (tech. transfer, consultancy, and external).
independence and autonomy. This feeling is
11. Funds

etc.), government, alumni,  Industrial consultancy.
stronger with industry; 76% of industry feels
philanthropists, etc.  Use of dedicated financial management
so.
53. Are they doing enough to attract services, joint ventures, banking collaboration,
 Barely 22% feel IITs are doing enough to
funds? tax free philanthropy, alumni funding, etc.
attract funds.
54. Should IITs be made self financing  More efficient use of management schools
 Only 32% feel IITs should be made self-
institutions: towards effective strategy design for raising
financing by raising fees, etc.
* By increasing students’ fees, and resources.
 71% feel performance-based differential pay
* Government providing fees for PhD  ”Radical” privatization (USA model).
for faculty is good.
scholars?  Academic activities through government
55. Should mutually agreed performance- funding; Only 32% feel IITs should be made
based differential pay be self-financing by raising fee, etc.
instituted/allowed for the faculty?  Majority of the respondents agreed that
performance-based differential pay structure
should be instituted.

192

 Most were not aware/did not think IIT
performance gets evaluated; nor are there metrics,
if any, used for continuous/periodic evaluation.
 Only 17% feel the performance of IITs is
56. Is the performance of IITs being Some suggestions for this:
adequately evaluated and addressed.
evaluated and addressed adequately?  Rigorous and bias-free evaluation criteria for
12. Performance

 Only 4% think that IITs have taken follow-
57. Have the previous review reports faculty, other than students’ evaluation.
up actions on previous review committee
(e.g., Nayudamma, Rama Rao) been  System as a whole should be evaluated.
reports (Nayudamma and Rama Rao). 30%
properly assessed and optimal follow-  Competition among IITs can serve as an
think IITs have acted while 66% have no idea
up actions taken? automatic periodic evaluation system.
about it.
58. Are there metrics in place for  Most were not aware of previous reviews (e.g.,
 Only 15% feel metrics for evaluation are in
continuous/periodic evaluations? Nayudamma, Rama Rao)/recommendations; those
place.
who did thought there were no effective follow-up
action. Only 8 faculty members responded; 4 of them
unaware of such exercises.

193

Appendix III : QS World Rankings

QS World Rankings for the top 10 ranks, followed by some of the best known
institutions, and also the first entry for each country ending with that for India, is
tabulated below.

Reproduced from http://www.topuniversities.com/
Rank
Name Country
2010
1 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
2 Harvard University United States
3 Yale University United States
4 UCL (University College, London) United Kingdom
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States
6 University of Oxford United Kingdom
7 Imperial College, London United Kingdom
8 University of Chicago United States
9 California Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States
10 Princeton University United States
13 Stanford University United States
16 Cornell University United States
17 Johns Hopkins University United States
18 ETH Zurich Switzerland
19 McGill University Canada
20 Australian National University (ANU) Australia
23 University of Hong Kong (HKU) Hong Kong
24 University of Tokyo, The Japan
25 Kyoto University Japan
29 University of Toronto Canada
31 National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore
32 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland
33 École Normale Supérieure de Paris France
34 Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) United States
40 Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Hong Kong
45 University of Copenhagen Denmark
47 Peking University China
49 Osaka University Japan
195

50 Seoul National University (SNU) Korea, South
51 Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Germany
52 Trinity College, Dublin Ireland
54 Tsinghua University China
56 University of Amsterdam The Netherlands
62 Uppsala University Sweden
68 University of Auckland New Zealand
74 Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore
75= Washington University in St. Louis United States
75= University of Helsinki Finland
77 University of Glasgow United Kingdom
78 University of Alberta Canada
KAIST - Korea Advance Institute of Science &
79 Technology Korea, South
London School of Economics and Political Science
80 (LSE) United Kingdom
86 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium
93 Lomonosov Moscow State University Russia
94 National Taiwan University (NTU) Taiwan
100 University of Oslo Norway
109 Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israel
143 University of Vienna Austria
148 Universitat de Barcelona Spain
150 KTH, Royal Institute of Technology Sweden
151 Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) China
187 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) India

196

Appendix IV : Note on Executive M. Tech Programme

Industry feels there is a need for their employees to get a higher degree while

working. One critical constraint is that these employees cannot spend any

residency period at the IITs or other institutes. The entire programme has to be

based on online interaction and supervision of projects, etc., by qualified mentors

at their workplace. The pace at which an employee goes through the programme

has to be variable, depending on the employee’s abilities and workload at different

times. As such, the constraints imposed by the course structure/schedule must be

as few as possible. Despite these constraints, the programme must be innovative

and create degrees with high intrinsic and brand value.

The IITs would be experimenting with several new pedagogical and procedural

methods if they were to implement an M.Tech programme that overcomes the

above-mentioned constraints. Several articles of faith have to be overcome. For

example, nothing can replace face-to-face teaching, labs are a core requirement

and cannot be jettisoned and project guidance cannot be left to non-faculty.

Naturally, there will be uncertainties about the success of a new programme

incorporating several radical changes.

One way to insulate the risks associated with the new programme from the

existing, smoothly running programmes is to create a new degree called the

Executive M.Tech (EMT) degree, to distinguish it from the existing residency

based M.Tech programme. Many leading universities adopt such an approach.

The EMT programme will consist entirely of online (live lectures and web-

based assignment/exam) courses offered in the evenings or on weekends, and a

project supervised entirely by a qualified mentor at the workplace. The courses

will be taught by IIT faculty and the evaluations will be done by them. There will

be no evaluation of assignments that may be given. A course may have some
197

discussion sessions for assignments. Solutions may be uploaded by the teacher.

The student will not be required to visit any IIT for either attending courses or

taking exams. There will be no lab courses. The project will also be evaluated by

IIT faculty. First the proposal will be evaluated and approved, and then the thesis

and student will be evaluated. The student will be physically present for the viva. It

is good to have at least one face-to-face meeting with the student. It is also possible

to include at this time a breadth-oriented comprehensive viva based on the

courses taken. This viva evaluation could be only for the purpose of feedback to

the employer on the degree of transformation that has occurred in the student. It

could also be given credits if desired.

The project is a very important component of postgraduate education in the

IIT system. In order to ensure that the potential supervisor, employer and student

clearly understand what is expected, a detailed document will be provided that

explains (i) the types of projects (analytical, simulation, modelling, experimental,

prototype development, research-oriented), (ii) the amount of work expected, (iii)

the quality of literature survey and reporting in the thesis, and the (iv) sanity

checks on the experimental and simulation results expected. IPR issues will be also

be dealt with. Sample theses that represent the different types and quantum of

work that is acceptable will also be provided.

In case the employer/supervisor desires co-supervision by an IIT faculty

member (particularly in the case of some latest technology or area of research),

this can be arranged by mutual consent. There will be separate payment for this

(along the lines of retainer consulting) and IPR issues will be also dealt with

clearly.

Project evaluation will be done by an independent faculty committee not

including the supervisor or co-supervisor. If desired, interim evaluation can also

198

be obtained by a committee member based on a video-conference presentation, in

order to ensure the project is on the right track. This evaluation will be informal

and not count for the final grade.

While online courses and absence of labs enable the programme to scale, it is

equally important to have the projects locally supervised without IIT faculty co-

supervisors for scaling to happen. However, this throws up the issue of identifying

suitable local supervisors. This can be ensured by (i) limiting the programme

initially to companies with a certain minimum size and number of Masters’ degree

holders, (ii) getting the company’s ethos, facilities, technology level and

supervision capabilities explicitly evaluated by an IIT faculty committee before

inclusion, (iii) documenting the skills and experience necessary for potential

supervisors, and (iv) assisting HR in selecting a pool of supervisors in the initial

stages. All faculty assistance at these stages can be compensated on a retainer basis.

Two operational modes are possible for the programme: (i) each IIT having its

own programme, and (ii) a common programme jointly operated by the IITs. The

latter may have difficulties associated with Senate jurisdiction and awarding of

degrees. The former may work quite well for the established IITs and may even

lead to healthy competition, but the newer IITs may be required to partner with

their erstwhile mentors for some time. Further, to give the students the maximum

possible latitude in taking courses at times when their workload is less, we may

need to allow a student to register for a course offered by a sister IIT, may be up to

a maximum of 50% of the total credits. The course grade will be transferred to the

IIT with which the student is registered at the end of the course.

An industry Board will interact with the IIT(s) to define the curriculum for

different disciplines. The current practice in several disciplines in various IITs is to

define very specialized M.Tech programmes with narrow curricula. These arise

199

from requirements faced by the nation and by industry at different times. For the

EMT programme, however, it will be better to avoid specialized streams and

define only at the level of broad disciplines (CSE, EE, ME, etc.). The selection of

coherent lists of courses by students can be ensured by (i) employer’s HR

department, (ii) tele-counselling by faculty advisors, or (iii) pre-defined baskets of

core courses from which a student has to select his/her core courses, or a

combination thereof. There are no scaling issues in all these one-of activities.

A typical EMT requirement would be ten 40-hour courses (with each course

divided into 2 modules of 20 hours) and a project.

Every IIT will create cubicles where a faculty member can give a live lecture

that will be multicast. He/she will use a tablet PC or equivalent technology for live

development of material (preferred to canned slides, which however could also be

used). The students’ faces are also shown live to the teacher and live interaction is

possible. The e-material can be uploaded to a site automatically. Tutorial

assignments can also be uploaded. Exams will be given at the appropriate time by

invigilators on-site and the faculty member may be available online for

clarifications, if any.

Let us assume a third of IIT faculty (i.e., 1000 out of 3000 today) is interested in

teaching in the evenings or on weekends. Let us assume the average faculty

member will teach 2 hours a week for 24 weeks in the year, i.e. about 50 lecture

hours or 2.5 modules per year. This works out to 2500 modules or 1250 courses in

all. As the number of faculty in the IIT system increases to 16,000, assuming only

4000 of the 16,000 teachers teach for 50 hours a year, the number of modules

increases to 10,000 modules or 5000 courses.

Given the remote nature of this programme, it will be prudent to limit the

number of students per course to 30 to begin with. About 30 faces on 2 or 3 large

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split screens in front of the teacher could still result in one-on-one interactions,

name recall, etc., all of which will lead to better outcomes. This means we can

award 1250 * 30/10 = 3750 degrees per year. As the number of faculty teaching

scales to 4000, the number of degrees could go up to 14,800 degrees per year. This

seems a reasonable number to begin with (it is more than twice the total number

of M.Tech degrees currently awarded every year by all the IITs together).

There is tremendous scope for scaling. There can be more students per class,

more lectures per week by a faculty member, more faculty members (as IITs grow

to have 10,000 faculty members in all) participating, good faculty from other

institutions being included, other institutions themselves being included, etc. The

number of degrees awarded could easily increase to 50,000 per year.

Courses will begin and end at all times of the year. Project thesis submissions

and evaluations too will occur throughout the year. There is no system of

semesters in this programme. This spreading out of the workload is important for

the scaling of this programme. A degree will be awarded as soon as the

requirements are completed. There is no Convocation. However, the EMT degrees

awarded in an academic year will be listed in that year’s Convocation record.

Even with a fee of Rs. 25,000 per student per course, each 40-hour course will

generate Rs. 5 lakh (with just 20 students). Of this, Rs. 2.5 lakh can go to the

faculty member (@ Rs. 6000 per lecture) and a similar amount to the Institute. If a

faculty member chooses to have an assistant (graduate student) for solving

assignments, etc., the remuneration for the TA will be subtracted from the faculty

member’s remuneration. A faculty member can add potentially Rs. 5–6 lakh per

year to his/her income. Each Institute will earn around Rs. 10 crore per year. If the

costs (Internet, office staff, capex) are higher than anticipated in this note, the

course fee can be increased. The purpose of the above calculation is only to show

201

that there is considerable latitude even while ensuring good remuneration for

faculty and Institute, while still keeping the course affordable. Project thesis

evaluations and viva examinations will also earn remuneration for the faculty

member. The fee should be commensurate with the number of hours spent per

student, and should attract quality time from the faculty member.

Faculty performance will be assessed through feedback as well as blind

evaluation during online lectures. Besides, popular faculty will attract more

students and under-performing ones will see partially filled classes. Faculty

remuneration can be linked pro-rata to the number of students registered. By the

same token, a faculty member can decide not to offer a course if there is

insufficient registration. The process should ensure that only quality faculty

members continue to teach and there is accountability. By the same token,

students who do not do well in the examinations will be declared unsuccessful

without fear of pressure from the employers. Every Institute can have a separate

office, staffed by employees paid directly from the programme (and not

government employees), to run the programme (scheduling, enrolment, accounts,

etc.) though much of the work can be automated.

Everyone – student, teacher, employer, supervisor, Institute – must be on their

toes to ensure quality. Even the employer has to arm the HR department to keep a

close watch on the selection of students and monitor performance, final outcomes,

supervisor performance (it should impact their compensation), etc. This should

not be a “fill it, forget it” kind of programme for any of the stakeholders.

Outstanding teachers should become stars in their own right, known across the

industry and academia for their rating. They must come to be valued as much as

those who make seminal research contributions. Industry must be held to account

to show action where their claims are – do they really want so many M.Techs? Are

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they willing to commit mindshare to the effort? Are they willing to empower

supervisors, and later their Executive M.Techs? The cost of the programme, and

its attraction to the faculty, seem to be the least of the potential problems.

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Appendix V : Suggested Loan Scheme for IIT Students from SBI

As our educational institutions expand their capacity and increase their

enrolment, it becomes important to create loan schemes for students on

reasonable terms to enable such growth. The IITs have an ambitious agenda of

growth and are in need of a special loan programme for their students. This

document speaks of the contours of such a scheme.

1. The student loan programme should be a special programme created

exclusively for IIT students so that there is proper branding and special

terms.

2. The quantum of the loan should be such that it meets with at least 90% of

the financial needs of the student for the programme for payment of fees

and also for their personal and hostel expenses. The loan could be in the

range of Rs. 8–11 lakh for a 4-year undergraduate programme and Rs. 5–8

lakh for a postgraduate programme.

3. The loan needs to be granted on the personal guarantee of the student

without reference to the parents and without any asset backing the loan. It is

suggested that the loan be granted along with the admission document of

the IIT so that it is seamless and hassle free. Every student who joins an IIT

does so after a rigorous admission process and is in great demand in the

market for employment. The employment record is close to 100% with

multiple offers for the students starting with an annual compensation of Rs.

6–10 lakh, depending on the stream chosen. Hence the loan offer should

happen simultaneously with the admission process.

4. Payment of interest should be deferred till at least 6 months after completion

of the course and the student gets his degree.

205

5. For those students whose parental income is less than Rs. 4.5 lakh per

annum, the HRD ministry has a special scheme whereby the interest during

the period of study is paid by the GoI and the bank should tie up directly

with GoI so that this benefit is available to the student.

6. The loan interest rate should be reasonable so that it is attractive to the

students.

7. It is suggested that the repayment period for the principal amount be a

minimum of 7 years after completion of study so that the repayment terms

are easy on the student.

8. IIT will maintain a record of the loan granted so that students who do not

repay the loan would necessarily be put in touch with the bank when they

come to the IIT for any service after completion of their course.

9. The student would necessarily be asked to take a UID and be part of the

credit bureau to enable tracking of the loan throughout the tenure of the

loan. This will enhance the quality of the loan.

10. In the event of a student choosing to go abroad and having a loan at that

point of time, the IIT will ask for a clearance from the bank before it gives

any recommendations or any service. This will be done as part of the loan

agreement which the IIT will take on record. However, the IIT will bear no

liability for any default on this condition.

11. The HRD ministry will create a fund called the Student Loan Fund at the

rate of 4% of the overall loan amount which will be kept in an escrow

account with the bank so that the risk of default is reduced and the bank has

recourse to this fund. This will also take care of any default due to students

failing the course and being unable to repay the loan in the future. The

escrow account will be a deposit account so that interest accrues and this can

206

defray part of the cost. This is a sweetener so that the bank gives loans at the

time of admission on the guarantee of the student alone. These loan terms

are better for the student as well.

12. In the event that a student of an IIT, who has taken a loan, does an M.Tech

or MS programme in the IIT system, repayment of the loan should start

after completion of the M.Tech/MS programme. As an incentive, the

interest during the study period will be paid by the Government.

13. Similarly, if a student who has taken a loan does a PhD, then the interest

during the PhD programme should be paid by the Government and

repayment of the principle should commence after completion of the PhD

programme. Any incentive given for completion of the PhD programme will

be directly paid to the bank.

14. The bank should have full infrastructure in every IIT to service the needs of

the students.

15. In the initial stages, the intake of students could be around 10,000 per year

with probably 60% availing the loan.

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Appendix VI : Educational Loan Scheme by Indian Banks’ Association

This is a Central Scheme to provide Interest Subsidy for the period of

moratorium on Educational Loans taken by students from Economically Weaker

Sections from scheduled banks under the Educational Loan Scheme of the Indian

Banks’ Association to pursue Technical/Professional Education studies in India

Introduction

One of the major concerns of the Government is to ensure that nobody is

denied professional education because he or she is poor. The Indian Banks’

Association (IBA) had formulated a comprehensive model educational loan

scheme for adoption by all banks aimed at providing financial support from the

banking system to deserving/meritorious students for pursuing higher education

in India and abroad.

Objective of the Scheme

The Government of India has now approved a scheme to provide full interest

subsidy during the period of moratorium, i.e., Course Period plus one year or six

months after getting a job, whichever is earlier, on loans taken by students

belonging to Economically Weaker Sections from scheduled banks under the

Educational Loan scheme of the Indian Banks’ Association, for pursuing any of

the approved courses of studies in technical and professional streams from

recognized institutions in India. The nomenclature of the Scheme would be

“Central Scheme to provide Interest Subsidy (CSIS) for the period of moratorium

on Educational Loans taken by students from Economically Weaker Sections from

209

scheduled banks under the Educational Loan Scheme of the Indian Banks’

Association to pursue Technical/Professional Education studies in India”.

Applicability of the Scheme

The Scheme could be adopted by all scheduled banks and would be applicable

only for studies in recognized Technical/Professional Courses in India. The

interest subsidy shall be linked with the existing Educational Loan Scheme of IBA

and restricted to students enrolled in recognized Technical/Professional Courses

(after Class XII) in India in Educational Institutions established by Acts of

Parliament, other Institutions recognized by the concerned Statutory Bodies,

Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other Institutions set up by the

Central/state governments.

Interest Rates

The interest rates charged on the educational loan shall be as per the

BPLR/Base Rate of the individual banks and as per the provisions for interest rates

under the IBA Model Educational Loan Scheme.

Moratorium Period

Under the Central Scheme, the interest payable by the student belonging to

EWS for availing of the Educational Loan for Technical/Professional Courses in

India for the period of moratorium, i.e., Course Period plus one year or six

months after getting a job, whichever is earlier, as prescribed under the

Educational Loan Scheme for the Indian Banks’ Association, shall be borne by the

Government of India. After the period of moratorium is over, the interest on the

outstanding loan amount shall be paid by the student in accordance with the
210

provisions of the existing Educational Loan Scheme of Banks and as may be

amended from time to time, whichever is earlier.

Income Limit/Proof

The benefits of the Scheme would be applicable to those students belonging to

economically weaker sections, with an annual gross parental/family income with

upper limit of Rs. 4.5 lakh per year (from all sources). Income proof shall be

required from the students from such public authorities which are authorized by

the state governments for certification of income status for this Scheme, including

Central and State Sector Schemes. The present scheme is intended to cater to the

needs of students belonging to economically weaker sections with prescribed

upper parental gross income limit of the family from all sources, which is based on

economic index and not on social background. The scheme is independent of any

other schemes which may cater to EWS.

Competent Authority

The Ministry of HRD, Government of India, shall issue an Advisory before 31

March 2010 to all the state governments requesting them to designate appropriate

authority or authorities who are competent to issue income certificates, based on

economic index and not social background, for the purpose of this Scheme.

The Banks shall implement the Scheme in those states where the certification

authority has been notified as per the advisory from the Ministry of HRD,

Government of India.

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Eligibility for Interest Subsidy

The interest subsidy under the Scheme shall be available to the eligible students

only once, either for the first undergraduate degree course or the postgraduate

degrees/diplomas in India. Interest subsidy shall, however, be admissible for

integrated courses (graduate + postgraduate).

Interest subsidy under this Scheme shall not be available for those students

once they discontinue the course midstream, or who are expelled from the

Institutions on disciplinary or academic grounds. However, the interest subsidy

will be available only if the discontinuation was due to medical grounds for which

necessary documentation to the satisfaction of the Head of the educational

institution will have to be given.

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Appendix VII: How to Set up a New IIT

The objective should be to add more "quality IITs" and not just yet another IIT.
That is, the objective is not to create institutions that will merely become almost as
good as the established IITs, but to establish institutions that will bring to the table
something new that the established IITs cannot do. In other words, just as parents
are happy to see their son or daughter do better than them, we must expect the
new IITs to do better than the older generation. It means that these need far more
care and attention in the planning and establishment than what we saw in recent
years.

Sequence:

a) Identify the site (near an industrial area and/or complementary educational
institutions; with good access including an airport) and have the site
transferred to the Government.

b) Appoint a visionary Chairman and an interim Board.

c) After (a) is complete, appoint the Director. Identify institutions in India and
overseas that may support/mentor the Institute in its early years. Earmark
some funds for doing the non-routine (call it contingency, if you so like)
that may not be possible with government grants; such funds can be used at
the entire discretion of the Director and the Board.

d) Bring a few mid-level and senior academics on board, part-time or full-time,
on deputation or on loan. May need to use discretionary funds to enable
this. The Director and this team will spend up to 6 months to work out the
vision and plan for a new IIT. This is critical and only after this, one can
recruit faculty and students.

e) In parallel, start the process of architect selection for creating the master
plan.

f) Recruit the initial set of faculty, and thereafter students. Set up temporary
facilities in some academic institution to start the classes. The construction

213

of the permanent campus is already in the process while all this is
happening.

g) With this sequence, it is expected that the academic activities (research and
teaching) will start within 6-12 months after the Director is appointed.

214

Appendix VIII : Amendments to The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 (ACT)

In line with the discussions and recommendations in the report, the following
amendments to the Act are suggested. This would enable the IITs to have greater
administrative and financial autonomy. This will also facilitate in taking IITs to
excellence and greater relevance and meet the national objectives.

215

The Institutes of
Technology Act,
1961

[as amended by Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Act, 1963]

(Amendments needed pursuant to the recommendations of the Dr Kakodkar Committee are
shown herein)

216

The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961

[as amended by Institutes of Technology,] (Amendment) Act, 1963]

217

THE INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY ACT, 1961

ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS

CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY

SECTIONS

1. Short title and commencement.

2. Declaration of certain institutions as institutions of national importance.

3. Definitions.

CHAPTER II

THE INSTITUTES

4. Incorporation of Institutes.

5. Effect of incorporation of Institutes. Powers of Institutes.

6. Power of Institutes.

7. Institutes to be open to all races, creeds and classes.

8. Teaching at Institute.

9. Visitor.

10. Authorities of Institutes.

11. Board of Governors.

12. Term of office of, vacancies among, and allowances payable to members of Board.

13. Functions of Board.

14. Senate.

15. Functions of Senate.

16. Chairman of Board.

17. Director.

18. Deputy Director.

218

19. Registrar.

20. Other authorities and officers.

21. Grants by Central Government.

22. Fund of the Institute.

23. Accounts and audit.

SECTIONS

24. Pension and provident fund.

25. Appointments.

26. Statutes.

27. Statutes how made.

28. Ordinances.

29. Ordinances how made.

30. Tribunal of Arbitration.

CHAPTER III

THE COUNCIL

31. Establishment of Council.

32. Term of office of vacancies among, and allowances payable to members of Council.

33. Functions of Council.

34. Chairman of Council.

35. Power to make rules in respect of matters in this Chapter.

219

CHAPTER IV

MISCELLANEOUS

36. Acts and proceedings not to be invalidated by vacancies. etc.

37. Power to remove difficulties.

38. Transitional provisions.

39. Repeal and savings.

THE SCHEDULE

220

THE INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY,
ACT, 1961

No. 59 of 1961
[as amended by Institutes of Technology (Amendment)
Act, 1963]

An Act to declare certain institutions of technology to be institutions of

national importance and to provide for certain matters connected with such

institutions and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Be it enacted by Parliament in the Twelfth Year of the Republic of India as

follows;-

CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY

1. (1) This Act may be called the Institutes of Technology Act 1961.
Short title
(2) It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by and
commence
notification in the Official Gazette, appoint, and different dates may be -ment

appointed for different provisions of this Act.

*As per
2. Whereas the objects of institutions known as the Indian Institute of Declaration
Institutes of of certain
Technology Technology, Bombay, *the college of Engineering and Technology, Delhi; *the Institutions
(Amended) of national
Act 1963 Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Technology, importance.

Madras are such as to make them institutions of national importance, it is
Definitions
hereby declared that each such institution is an institution of national

importance.

3. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, -

(a) "Board", in relation to any Institute, means the Board of Governors thereof;

(b) "Chairman" means the Chairman of the Board;

(c) "Corresponding Institute" means, -

221

*As per (i) in relation to the society known as the Indian Institute of Technology,
Institutes of
Technology Bombay, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay;
(Amended)
Act 1963 *(ia) in relation to the known society as the College of Engineering &

Technology, Delhi, the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

(ii) in relation to the society known as the Indian Institute of Technology

(Kanpur) Society, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and

(iii) in relation to the society known as the Indian Institute of Technology,

Madras, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras;

(d) "Council" means the Council established under sub-section (I) of section

31;

(e) "Deputy Director", in relation to any Institute means the Deputy Director

thereof;

(f) "Director", in relation to any Institute means the Director thereof;

(g) "Institute" means any of the Institutions mentioned in section 2 and 5 of 1956

includes the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, incorporated under

the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, 1956;

(h) "Registrar", in relation to any Institute, means the Registrar thereof;

(i) "Senate", in relation to any Institute, means the Senate thereof;

(j) "Society" means any of the following societies registered under the Societies 21 of 1860

Registration Act, 1860, namely;-

*As per (i) the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay;
Institutes of
Technology *(ia) the College of Engineering and Technology, Delhi;
(Amended)
Act 1963 (ii) the Indian Institute of Technology, (Kanpur) Society;

(iii) the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras;

(k) "Statutes and Ordinances" in relation to any Institute, mean the Statutes and

Ordinances of the Institute made under this Act.

222

CHAPTER II

THE INSTITUTES
Incorpora-
4. (I) Each of the Institutes mentioned in section 2 shall be a body
tion of
Institutes
corporate having perpetual

succession and a common seal and shall, by its name, sue and be sued.

*As per *(IA) The College of Engineering and Technology, Delhi, shall on such
Institutes of
Technology incorporation; be called the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
(Amended)
Act 1963 (2) The body corporate constituting each of the said Institute shall consist of

a Chairman, a Director and other members of the Board for the time being of

the Institute.

Effect of 5. On and from the commencement of this Act;-
Incorpora-
tion of (a) any reference to a society in any law (other than this Act) or in any contract
Institutes
or other instrument shall be deemed as a reference to the corresponding

Institute;

(b) all property, movable and immovable; of or belonging to a society shall vest

in the corresponding institute;

(c) all the rights and liabilities of a society shall be transferred to, and be the

rights and liabilities of the corresponding Institute; and

(d) every person employed by a society immediately before such

commencement shall hold his office or service in the corresponding, Institute

by the same tenure, at the same remuneration and upon the same terms and

conditions and with the same rights and privileges as to pension, leave,

gratuity, provident fund and other matters as he would have held the same if

this Act had not been passed, and shall continue to do so unless and until his

employment is terminated or until such tenure, remuneration and terms and

conditions are duly altered by the Statutes:

223

Provided that if the alteration so made is not acceptable to such employee,

his employment may be terminated by the Institute in accordance with the

terms of the contract with the employee or, if no provision is made therein in

this behalf, on payment to him by the Institute of compensation equivalent to

three months’ remuneration in the case of permanent employees and one

month's remuneration in the case of other employees.

6. (I) Subject to the provision of this Act, every Institute shall exercise the
Power of
following powers and perform the following duties, namely:-- Institutes

(a) to provide for instruction and research in such branches of engineering and

technology, sciences and arts, as the Institute may think fit, and for the

advancement of learning and dissemination of knowledge in such branches;

(b) to hold examinations and grant degrees, diplomas and other academic

distinctions or titles;

(c) to confer honorary degrees or other distinctions;

(d) to fix, demand and receive fees and other charges;

(e) to establish, maintain and manage halls and hostels for the residence of

students;

(f) to supervise and control the residence and regulate the discipline of students

of the Institute and to make arrangements for promoting their health, general

welfare and cultural and corporate life;

(g) to provide for the maintenance of units of the National Cadet Corps for the

students of the Institute;

(h) to institute academic and other posts and to make appointments thereto

(except in the case of the Director);

Amend to delete " (except in the case of the Director);"

Substitute it as under:
224

“to institute academic and other posts and to make appointments thereto
including in the case of the Director”

(i) to frame Statutes and Ordinances and to alter, modify or rescind the

same;

(j) to deal with any property belonging to or vested in the Institute in such

manner as the Institute may deem fit for advancing the objects of the Institute;

(k) to receive gifts, grants, donations or benefactions from the Governments

and to receive bequests, donations and transfers of movable or immovable

properties from testators, donors or transferors, as the case may be;

(l) to co-operate with educational or other institutions in any part of the world

having objects wholly or partly similar to those of the Institute by exchange of

teachers and scholars and generally in such manner as may be conducive to

their common objects;

(m) to institute and award fellowships, scholarships, exhibitions, prizes and

medals; and

(n) to do all such things as may be necessary, incidental or conducive to the

attainment of all or any of the objects of the Institute.

Amend to add after clause (m), a new clause (n), and clause (o), and reclassify
clause (n) above as clause (p)

(n) To borrow money for the Institute on such terms and conditions as may be
decided by the Board subject to prior approval from the Government in
writing and to create assets of the Institute in the forms of buildings, hostels,
land, laboratories, convention centres, research centres and the like as may be
necessary.

(o) To purchase, construct, install any property, plant or equipment or any
asset of similar nature as decided by the Board.

225

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), an Institute shall

not dispose of in any manner any immovable property without the prior
Institute to
be open to approval of the Visitor.
all races,
creeds and 7. (1) Every Institute shall be open to persons of either sex and of whatever
classes.
race, creed, caste

or class, and no test or condition shall be imposed as to religious belief or

profession in admitting or appointing members, students, teachers or workers

or in any other connection whatsoever.

(2) No bequest, donation or transfer of any property shall be accepted by any

Institute which in the opinion of the Council involves conditions or obligations

opposed to the spirit and object of this section.
Teaching at
Institute Substitute the word “Council” by word “Board” as under

No bequest, donation or transfer of any property shall be accepted by any
Institute which in the opinion

of the Board involves conditions or obligations opposed to the spirit and
objectives of this section

8. All teaching at each of the Institute shall be conducted by or in the name

of the Institute in accordance with the Statutes and Ordinances made in this
Visitor
behalf.

Amend Clause 8 as follows to include “research and other related activities”

All teaching, research and other related activities at each of the Institutes
shall be conducted by or in the

name of the Institute in accordance with the Statutes and Ordinances made in
this behalf.

9. (1) The President of India shall be the Visitor of every Institute.

Add a new clause 9(2) as follows after 9 (1);
226

(2) The Visitor may require a review of every Institute once in five years by a
group of eminent and accomplished individuals of International standing to
be recommended by the IIT council. The report of this group should be
reviewed by the concerned Board of Governors and the IIT Council and the
corrective actions if any taken thereon. Such reports and the response of the
Board of Governors and the IIT Council shall be in the public domain.

(2) The Visitor may appoint one or more persons to review the work and

progress of any Institute and to hold inquiries into the affairs thereof and to

report thereon in such manner as the Visitor may direct.

Renumber old 9(2) as 9(3).

(3) The Visitor may appoint one or more persons to review the work and

progress of any Institute and to hold inquiries into the affairs thereof and to

report thereon in such manner as the Visitor may direct.

(3) Upon receipt of any such report, the Visitor may take such action and issue

such directions as he considers necessary in respect of any of the matters dealt

with in the report and the Institute shall be bound to comply with such
Authorities
directions. of Institutes

Renumber 9(3) as 9(4)

(4) Upon receipt of any such report, the Visitor may take such action and issue

such directions as he considers necessary in respect of any of the matters dealt

with in the report and the Institute shall be bound to comply with such
Authorities
directions. of Institutes

10. The following shall be the authorities of an Institute,

(a) a Board of Governors;

227

(b) a Senate; and

(c) Such other authorities as may be declared by the Statutes to be the

authorities of the Institute.
Board of
11. The Board of an Institute shall consist of the following persons, namely:- Governors.

(a) the Chairman, to be nominated by the Visitor;

(b) the Director, ex officio,

(c) one person to be nominated by the Government of each of the States

comprising the zone in which the Institute is situated, from among persons

who, in the opinion of that Government, are technologists or industrialists of

repute;

(d) four persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of

education, engineering or science, to be nominated by the Council; and

(e) two professors of the Institute, to be nominated by the Senate.

Explanation:- In this section, the expression "zone" means a zone as for the

time being demarcated by the All-India Council for Technical Education for

the purposes of this Act.

Amend clause 11 as follows;

11. The Board of an Institute shall consist of the following persons, namely:-

(a) the Chairman, who, shall be a non-official person of eminence in
education, science, engineering, technology or industry, to be recommended
by the Board, and approved by the IIT Council

(b) the Director, ex-officio

(c) one eminent person who is an academician or an industrialist or
Principal Secretary in-charge of higher technical education in the State* to be
nominated by the Government of the State in which the Institute is situated.

228

(d) one person, to be the nominee of the Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Government of India, to be nominated by the Minister

(e) three eminent representatives of industry to be selected by the Board
from a panel of names proposed by a group consisting of Chairmen of CII
(Confederation of Indian Industries), FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers
of Commerce and Industry), ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of
Commerce and Industry of India ) and NASSCOM (The National Association
of Software and Services Companies) and such panel being approved by the
IIT Council.

(f) three eminent persons who are research scientists or technologists to be
selected by the Board from a panel of names proposed by a group consisting
of Presidents of INSA, IAS, NASI and INAE and such panel being approved by
the IIT Council

(g) two eminent alumni of an IIT who are not employees of any IIT to be
nominated by the Board.

(h) two Professors of the Institute, to be nominated by the Senate

(i) One eminent citizen appointed by the Board.

*As per 12. (1) Save as otherwise provided in this section the term of office of the
Institutes of
Technology Chairman or any
(Amended)
Act 1963 other member of the Board shall be three years from the date of his

nomination.

Amend to modify Clause 12(1)

"Save as otherwise provided in this section the term of office of the Chairman
or any

other member of the Board shall be an initial period of three years from the
date of his appointment."

229

(2) The term of office of an ex officio member shall continue so long as he

holds the office by virtue of which he is a member.

Substitute 12 (2) by the following

The term of office of a nominee of Government of India / State Government /
Senate of the Institute/ex-officio member shall continue so long as he holds the
office by virtue of which he is a member.

(3) The term of office of a member nominated under clause (e) of section 11

shall be two years from the 1st day of January of the year in which he is

nominated.

Amend to modify Clause 12 (3) as follows

The term of office of a member nominated under clause (h) of section 11 shall
be two years from the 1st day of the Month in which he is nominated

Add as clause (4) the following

Every retiring member, including the Chairman, except the member specified
in clause 11(b), 11(c), 11(d), and 11(h) may be considered for another term of
3 years by the Board, subject to the recommendation of the Nominations
Committee of the Board. The term of office of the Chairman shall be
independent of the term already served on the Board as a member.

(4) The term of office of a member nominated to fill a casual vacancy shall

continue for the remainder of the term of the member in whose place he has

been nominated.

Renumber clause (4) as clause (5)

Substitute Clause 12 (5) by the following as clause (6)

(6) Every outgoing member shall vacate his office, unless stated above, upon

completion of his term.

230

Insert clause 12 (7) and clause (8) as under

(7) The Board shall constitute a Nomination Committee of the Board to
recommend members for appointment / re-appointment to the Board. The
Nomination Committee shall consist of 3 members appointed by the Board
from among themselves. The Nomination committee shall normally consider
one of the Board members for the post of Chairman based on a transparent
and approved process and criteria so that the person recommended is familiar
with the working of the Board. The nomination committee may however look
outside the Board to recommend a Chairman, upon the approval of the Board
that such a step is necessary.

(8) All members of the Board shall be appointed by a majority decision of the
Board based on the recommendations of the Nomination committee except
members nominated by the Government or the Senate. The decision of the
Board on this matter shall be final and binding. The appointment of the
Chairman is however subject to approval of the Council.

Similarly Clause 12(6) to be renamed as Clause 12(9) and amended to read
as under

(9) The members of the Board shall be entitled to such allowances for
attending the meetings of the Board and any sub-committee thereof, if any,
from the Institute as may be provided for in the Statutes but no member other
than the persons referred to in clauses (b) and (h) of section 11 shall be
entitled to any salary by reason of this sub-section.

Functions 13. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Board of any Institute shall be
of Board
responsible for

the general superintendence, direction and control of the affairs of the Institute

and shall exercise all the powers of the Institute not otherwise provided for by

this Act, the Statutes and the Ordinances, and shall have the power to review

the acts of the Senate.

231

(2) Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), the Board of any

Institute shall-

(a) take decisions on questions of policy relating to the administration and

working of the Institute;

(b) institute courses of study at the Institute;

(c) make Statutes;

(d) institute and appoint persons to academic as well as other posts in the

Institute;

Amend to modify Clause 13(2)(d) to change “institute and appoint” to “create
and appoint”

d) create academic and other posts in the Institute and appoint persons to
those posts as may be necessary. The Board may from time to time, determine
the compensation policy and the service conditions for its employees based on
the general guidelines of the Council.

Clause to be added after 13 (2)(d)

(e) appoint a Chairman and members of the Board as stated supra

(f) appoint the Director of the Institute and determine the terms and
conditions of his employment

(g) to determine the fees payable by students undergoing instructions in the
Institute, the fellowships to Research scholars from time to time and such
other charges concerning the students.

(h) to expend the funds of the Institute for its working and for creation of
assets/infrastructure upon such guidelines as it may prescribe, to determine
its budget and generally carry out its financial affairs in a prudent manner.

Renumber subsequent clauses (e) to (g) as (i) to (k)

(e) consider and modify or cancel Ordinances;

232

(f) consider and pass resolutions on the annual report, the annual accounts and

the budget estimates of the Institute for the next financial year as it thinks fit

and submit them to the Council together with a statement of its developments

plans;

(g) exercise such other powers and perform such other duties as may be

conferred or imposed upon it by this Act or the Statutes.

(i) consider and modify or cancel Ordinances;

(j) consider and pass resolutions on the annual report, the annual accounts
and the budget estimates of the Institute for the next financial year as it thinks
fit and submit them to the Council together with a statement of its
developments plans;

(k) exercise such other powers and perform such other duties as may be
conferred or imposed upon it by this Act or the Statutes.

(3) The Board shall have the power to appoint such committees as it considers

necessary for the exercise of its powers and the performance of its duties under

this Act including the Nominations committee and , the Audit committee

Add as clause (4)

(4)The Board shall have the power to appoint a Director for the Institute
based upon the recommendations of a search committee setup for this purpose
with at least three members who are not members of the Board, being eminent
academics, technologists, scientists, or industrialists. The recommendation of
such committees may be accepted by the Board or if the recommendations are
not accepted a new search committee will be reconstituted. The Committee
shall conduct its search in an open and transparent manner to ensure
objectivity. The Board shall conclude the process of appointing a new Director
at least three months before the end of the term of the incumbent.

14. The Senate of each Institute shall consist of the following persons; namely:-
Senate

233

(a) the Director, ex officio who shall be the Chairman of the Senate;

(b) the Deputy Director, ex officio,

(c) the professors appointed or recognised as such by the Institute for the

purpose of imparting instruction in the Institute;

(d) three persons, not being employees of the Institute, to be nominated by the

Chairman in consultation with the Director; from among educationists of

repute, one each from the fields of science, engineering and humanities; and

(e) such other members of the staff as may be laid down in the Statutes;

Functions 15. Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Statutes and the Ordinances, the
of Board.
Senate of an Institute shall have the control and general regulation, and be

responsible for the maintenance, of standards of instruction, education and

examination in the Institute and shall exercise such other powers and perform

such other duties as may be conferred or imposed upon it by the Statutes.

16. (1) The Chairman shall ordinarily preside at the meetings of the Board and Chairman
of Board.
at the Convocations of the Institute.

Substitute Clause (16) 1 as follows

(1) The Chairman shall ordinarily preside at the meetings of the Board and
at the Convocations of the Institute. In the absence of Chairman, the Board
may appoint a Chairman for this specific purpose at the meetings of the Board
and for the Convocations of the Institute.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Chairman to ensure that the decisions taken by

the Board are implemented.

(3) The Chairman shall exercise such other powers and perform such other

duties as may be assigned to him by this Act or the Statutes.
Director.
17. (1) The Director of each Institute shall be appointed by the Council with the

prior approval
234

of the Visitor.

Substitute Clause 17(1) as follows

(1) The Director of each Institute will be appointed by the Board in an open
and transparent manner through a search committee setup for this specific
purpose.

(2) The Director shall be the principal academic and executive officer of the

Institute and shall be responsible for the proper administration of the Institute

and for the imparting of instruction and maintenance of discipline therein.

Amend to modify Clause 17(2) (Director)

(2) The Director shall be the principal academic and executive officer of the
Institute and shall be responsible for the proper administration of the Institute
and for the imparting of instruction and maintenance of discipline therein
and for taking decisions on financial matters as per the powers delegated by
the Board.

(3) The Director shall submit annual reports and accounts to the Board.

(4) The Director shall exercise such other powers and perform such other

duties as may be assigned to him by this Act or the statutes or Ordinances.

Amend to modify Clause 17 (4) (Director)

(4) The Director shall exercise such other powers and perform such other
duties as may be assigned to him by this Act or the statutes or Ordinances, or
by the Board.

Insert Clause 17(5) as under

(5) The term of the Director shall be for an initial period of 5 years
subject to retirement. The remuneration and terms of appointment will be
decided by Board. The Director shall not be removed from his office except by
3/4th majority of the members of the Board approving the removal and only

235

upon grounds of gross misconduct, moral turpitude or upon conviction under
law. The Director will be eligible for a re-appointed for second term of five
years upon recommendation of the Search Committee and approval of the
Board subject to retirement.

18. The Deputy Director of each Institute shall be appointed on such terms and Deputy
Director.
conditions as may be laid down by the Statutes and shall exercise such powers

and perform such duties as may be assigned to him by this Act or the Statutes

or by the Director.

19. (1) The Registrar of each Institute shall be appointed on such terms and Registrar

conditions as may

be laid down by the Statutes and shall be the custodian of records, the common

seal, the funds of the Institute and such other property of the Institute a5 the

Board shall commit to his charge.

(2) The Registrar shall act as the Secretary of the Board, the Senate, and such

committees as may be prescribed by the Statutes.

(3) The Registrar shall be responsible to the Director for the proper discharge

of his functions.

(4) The Registrar shall exercise such other powers and perform such other

duties as may be assigned to him by this Act or the Statutes or by the Director.

20. The powers and duties of authorities and officers other than those Other
authorities
hereinbefore mentioned shall be determined by the statutes. and officers

Grants by 21. For the purpose of enabling the Institutes to discharge their functions
Central
Government efficiently under this Act, the Central Government may, after due

appropriation made by Parliament by law in this behalf, pay to each Institute in

each financial year such sums of money and in such manner as it may think fit.

Fund of the 22. (1) Every Institute shall maintain a Fund to which shall be credited -
Institute.

236

(a) all money provided by the Central Government;

(b) all fees and other charges received by the Institute;

(c) all money received by the Institute by way of grants. gifts. donations,

benefactions, bequests or transfers, and

(d) all money received by the Institute in any other manner or from any other

source.

(2) All moneys credited to the fund of any Institute shall be deposited in such

Banks or invested in such manner as the Institute may,with the approval of the

Central Government, decide

Modify Clause 22 (2) as follows;

(2) All moneys credited to the Fund of any Institute shall be deposited in such
banks or invested in such manner as the Institute may decide upon the
approval of the Board based on general guidelines issued by the Government
from time to time,

(3) The Fund of any Institute shall be applied towards meeting the expenses of

the Institute including expenses incurred in the exercise of its powers and

discharge of its duties under this Act.

Add a new clause 22(4) as follows;

(4) Any money considered surplus to the immediate needs of the Institute, or
an endowment, or a gift of money may be invested in Bank deposits,
securities, or other instruments as per the guidelines issued by the Government
from time to time

Accounts 23. (1) Every Institute shall maintain proper accounts and other relevant
and audit.
records and prepare an

237

annual statement of accounts, including the balance -sheet, in such form as

may be prescribed by the Central Government in consultation with the Statutes.

Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.

(2) The accounts of every Institute shall be audited by the Comptroller and

Auditor –General of India and any expenditure incurred by him in connection

with such audit shall be payable by the Institute to the Comptroller and

Auditor -General of India.

(3) The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India and any person appointed

by him in connection with the audit of the accounts of any Institute shall have

the same rights, privileges and authority in connection with such audit as the

Comptroller and Auditor -General of India has in connection with the audit of

the Government accounts, and, in particular, shall have the right to demand the

production of books, accounts, connected vouchers and other documents and

papers and to inspect the offices of the Institute.

(4) The accounts of every Institute as certified by the Comptroller and Auditor-

General of India or any other person appointed by him in this behalf together

with the audit report thereon shall be forwarded annually to the Central

Government and that Government shall cause the same to be laid before each

House of Parliament.

24. (1) Every Institute shall constitute for the benefit of its employees, including Pension
and
the Director in provident
fund.
such manner and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by the

Statutes, such pension. Insurance and provident funds as it may deem fit.

238

19 of 1925. (2) Where any such provident fund has been so constituted, the Central

Government may declare that the provision of the Provident Funds Act, 1925

shall apply to such fund as if it were a Government Provident Fund.
Appoint-
25. All appointments on the staff of any Institute, except that of the Director, ments

shall be made in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Statutes, by –

Amend to modify by deleting “ except that of the Director” and to redraft as
under:

"All appointments on the staff of any Institute shall be made in accordance
with the procedure laid down in the Statutes, by"

(a) the Board, if the appointment is made on the academic staff in the post of

lecturer or above or if the appointment is made on the non-academic staff in

any cadre the maximum of the pay scale for which exceeds six hundred rupees

per month;

Substitute Clause 25 (a) as under

(a) the Board, if the appointment is made on the academic staff in the post of
lecturer or above or if the appointment is made on the non-academic staff in
any cadre by the Director based on the positions and pay scales approved by
the Board. The Board may however delegate the appointment of Academic
staff to the Director or a Committee constituted by the Board.

(b) by the Director, in any other case.

Amend Clause 25 to add as under (Appointments)

(c ) The compensation, and terms and conditions of employment for
Academic and Non-academic staff shall be decided by the Board from time to
time. However, such compensation shall not be lower than the pay scales as
determined by the Government for equivalent positions.

239

26. Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Statutes may provide for all or any

of the following matters, namely:-

(a) the conferment of honorary degrees;

(b) the formation of departments of teaching;

(c) the fees to be charged for courses of study in the Institute and for admission

to the Examinations of degrees and diplomas of the Institute.

(d) the institution of fellowships, scholarship, exhibitions, medals and prizes.

Modify Clause 26 (d) as follows:

(d) the institution of fellowships, assistantships, scholarships, exhibitions
medals and prizes;

(e) the term of office and the method of appointment of officers of the

Institute;

(f) the qualification of teachers of the Institute;

Modify Clause 26 (f) as follows:

(f) the qualifications of academic and other staff of the Institute;

(g) the classification, the method of appointment and the determination of the

terms and conditions of service of teachers and other staff of the Institute;

Modify Clause 26 (g) as follows:

(g) the classifications, the method of appointment and the determination of
the terms and conditions of service of academic and other staff of the Institute;

(h) the constitution of pension, insurance and provident funds, for the benefit

of the officers, teachers and other staff' of the Institute;

(i) the constitution, powers and duties of authorities of Institute;

(j) the establishment and maintenance of halls and hostels;

240

(k) the conditions of residence of students of the Institute and the levying of

fees for residence in the halls and hostels and of other charges;

(l) the manner of filling vacancies among members of the Board;

(m) the allowances to be paid to the Chairman and members of the board;

(n) the authentication of the orders and decisions of the board;

(o) the meetings of the Board, the Senate, or any Committee, the quorum at

such meetings and the procedure to be followed in the conduct of their

business;

(p) any other matter which by this Act is to be or may be prescribed by the

Statutes.

Statutes 27. (1) The first Statutes of each Institute shall be framed by the Council with
how made.
the previous

approval of the Visitor and a copy of the same shall be laid as soon as may be

before each House of Parliament.

(2) The Board may, from time to time, make new or additional Statutes or may

amend or repeal the Statutes in the manner hereafter in this section provided.

(3) Every new Statute or addition to the Statutes or any amendment or repeal of

a Statute shall require the previous approval of the Visitor who may assent

thereto or withhold assent or remit it to the Board for consideration.

(4) A new Statute or a Statute amending or repealing an existing Statute shall
have no validity unless it has been assented to by the Visitor.

Amend Clause 27 (3) and 27 (4) to be modified as under

Substitute the word “Visitor” by “IIT Council”

241

(3) Every new Statute or addition to the Statutes or any amendment or repeal

of a Statute shall require the previous approval of the IIT Council who may

assent thereto or withhold assent or remit it to the Board for consideration.

(4) A new Statute or a Statute amending or repealing an existing Statute shall
have no validity unless it has been assented to by the IIT Council.

28. Subject to the provisions of this Act and the Statutes, the Ordinance, of each
Ordinances.
Institute may provide for all or any of the following matters namely:-

(a) the admission of the students to the Institute;

(b) the courses of study to be laid down for all degrees and diplomas of the

Institute;

(c) the conditions under which students shall be admitted to the degree or

diploma courses and to the examinations of the Institute, and shall be eligible

for degrees and diplomas;

(d) the conditions of award of the fellowships, Scholarships, exhibitions,

medals and prizes;

(e) the conditions and mode of appointment and duties of examining bodies,

examiners and moderators;

(f) the conduct of examinations;

(g) the maintenance of discipline among the students of the Institute; and

(h) any other matter which by this Act or the Statutes is to be or may be Ordinances
how made
provided for by the Ordinances.

29. (1) Save as otherwise provided in this section, Ordinances shall be made by

the Senate.

(2) All ordinances made by the Senate shall have effect from such date as it may

direct, but every Ordinance so made shall be submitted, as soon as may be, to

the Board and shall be considered by the Board at its next succeeding meeting.
242

(3) The Board shall have power by resolution to modify or cancel any such

Ordinance and such Ordinance shall from the date of such resolution stand Tribunal of
Arbitration.
modified accordingly or cancelled, as the case may be.

30. (1) Any dispute arising out of a contract between an Institute and any of its

employees shall,

at the request of the employee concerned or at the instance of the Institute, be

referred to a Tribunal of Arbitration consisting of one member appointed by

the Institute, one member nominated by the employee, and an umpire

appointed by the Visitor.

(2) The decision of the Tribunal shall be final and shall not be questioned in

any court.

(3) No Suit or proceeding shall lie in any court in respect of any matter which is

required by subsection (1) to be referred to the Tribunal of Arbitration.

(4) The Tribunal of Arbitration shall have power to regulate its own procedure.

(5) Nothing in any law for the time being in force relating to arbitration shall

apply to arbitrations under this section.

CHAPTER III

THE COUNCIL

Establish- 31. (1) With effect from such date as the Central Government may, by
ment of
Council notification in the

Official Gazette, specify in this behalf, there shall be established a central body

to be called the Council.

Add at the end of Clause 31 (1); “It shall meet at least twice in a calendar
year.”

31. (1) With effect from such date as the Central Government may, by
notification in the Official Gazette, specify in this behalf, there shall be

243

established a central body to be called the Council. It shall meet at least twice
in a calendar year.

(2) The Council shall consist of the members, namely :-

(a) the Minister in charge of 'technical education in the Central Government,

ex officio,. As Chairman;

(b) the Chairman of each Institute, Ex officio;

(c) the Director of each Institute, Ex officio;

(d) the Chairman, University Grants Commission, Ex officio;

(e) the Director-General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ex

officio;

(f) the Chairman of the Council of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,

Ex officio;

(g) the Director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, ex officio;

(h) three persons to be nominated by the Central Government, one to

represent the Ministry concerned with technical education, another to

represent the Ministry of Finance and the third to represent any other Ministry;

(i) one person to be nominated by the AII- India Council for Technical

Education;

(j) not less than three, but not more than five, persons to be nominated by the

Visitor, who shall be persons having special knowledge or practical experience

in respect of education, industry, science or technology;

(k) three Members of Parliament, of whom two shall be elected by the House of

the People from among its members and one by the Council of States from

among its members.

244

(3) An officer of the Ministry of the Central Government concerned with

technical education shall be nominated by that Government to act as the
Term of
office of Secretary of the Council.
vacancies
among and 32. (1) Save as otherwise provided in this section, the term of office of a
allowances
payable to member of the Council
members of
Council. shall be three years from the date of his nomination or election, as the case

may be.

(2) The term of office of an ex officio member shall continue so 10ng as he

holds the office by virtue of which he is a member.

(3) A member of the Council referred to in clause (h) of sub-section (2) of

section 31 shall hold office during the pleasure of the Central Government.

(4) The term of office of a member elected under clause (k) of sub-section (2)

of section 31 shall expire as Soon as he ceases to be a member of the House

which elected him.

(5) The term of office of a member nominated or elected to fill a casual vacancy

shall continue for the remainder of the term of the member in whose place he

has been nominated or elected.

(6) Notwithstanding anything contained in this section an outgoing member

shall, unless the Central Government otherwise directs, continue in office until

another person is nominated or elected as a member in his place.

(7) The members of the Council shall be paid such travelling and other

allowances by the Central Government as may be determined by that

Government, but no member shall be entitled to any salary by reason of this

Sub-section.

245

33. (1) It shall be the general duty of the Council to co-ordinate the activities of Functions
of Council.
all the

Institutes.

(2) Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), the Council shall

perform the following functions, namely: -

(a) to advise on matters relating to the duration of the courses, the degrees and

other academic distinctions to be conferred by the Institutes, admission

standards and other academic matters;

(b) to lay down policy regarding cadres, methods of recruitment and

conditions of service of employees, institution of scholarships and freeships,

levying of fees and other matters of common interest;

Add a new clause 33(2)(c)

(c) To approve the appointment of the Chairman of the Board based on the
recommendation of the Board, and to approve the panels of the recommended
names for selection of members of the Board . as per the details mentioned in
clause 11.

Rename the clauses ( c) below as (d)

(c) to examine the development plans of each Institute and to approve such of

them as are considered necessary and also to indicate broadly the financial

implications of such approved plans;

(d) to examine the annual budget estimates of each Institute and to recommend

to the Central Government the allocation of funds for that purpose;

Delete existing clause 33(2)(d)

Add a new clause 33(2)(e)

(e) to approve a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the
Government and each Institute annually. The MOU will include a) the
246

academic accomplishments of the Institute including the research and
technological outputs, b) the number of students to be admitted in various
categories, c) the quantum and number of scholarships and assistantships to
be provided by the Central Government for UG, Masters and PhD students, c)
support to students from scheduled categories and those with weaker economic
background d) incentives to students to get into research and teaching e) the
quantum of support from the Central Government for pension payments,
capital expenditure, research and such other matters as mutually decided

Rename the clauses (e)-(f) as (f)-(g)

(e) to advise the Visitor, if so required, in respect of any function to be

performed by him under this Act; and

(f) to perform such other functions as are assigned to it by or under this Act.

34. (1) The Chairman of the Council shall ordinarily preside at the meetings of Chairman
of Council.
the Council.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Chairman of the Council to ensure that the

decisions taken by the Council are implemented.

(3) The chairman shall exercise such other powers and perform such other

duties as are assigned to him by this Act.

Power to 35. (1) The Central Government may make rules to carry out the purposes of
make rules
in respect this Chapter.
of matters
in this (2) In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power,
Chapter.
such rules may provide for all or any of the following matters, namely:-

(a) the manner of filling vacancies among the members of the Council;

(b) the disqualifications for being chosen as, and for being, a member of the

Council;

247

(c) the circumstances in which, and the authority by which, members may be

removed;

(d) the meetings of the Council and the procedure of conducting business

thereat;

(e) the travelling and other allowances payable to members of the Council; and

(f) the functions of the Council and the manner in which such functions may

be exercised.

CHAPTER IV

MISCELLANEOUS
Acts and 36. No act of the council, or any Institute or Board or any other body set up
proceeding
not to be
under this Act or the Statutes, shall be invalid merely by reason of –
invalidated
by
(a) any vacancy in, or defect in the constitution thereof, or
vacancies
etc.
(b) any defect in the election nomination or appointment of a person acting as

a member thereof, or

(c) any irregularity in its procedure not affecting the merits of the case.

Power to 37. If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the
remove
difficulties. Central Government may, by order published in the Official Gazette, make

such provision or giving such direction not inconsistent with the purposes of

this Act, as appears to it to be necessary or expedient for removing the
Transitional
provisions.
difficulty.

38. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act,-

(a) the Board of Governors of an Institute functioning as such immediately

before the commencement of this Act shall continue to so function until a new

Board is constituted for that Institute under this Act, but on the constitution of

a new Board under this Act, the members of the Board holding office before

such constitution shall cease to hold office;

248

(b) *The staff committee constituted in relation to the College of Engineering
*As per
and technology, Delhi and any Academic Council constituted in relation to any Institutes of
Technology
other Institute before the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to be the (Amended)
Act 1963
Senate constituted under this Act until a Senate is constituted under this Act

for that Institute;

(c) until the first Statutes and the Ordinance are made under this Act, the

Statutes and Ordinances of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur as in

force immediately before the commencement of this Act shall continue to

apply to that Institute and shall, with the necessary modifications and

adaptation also apply to any other Institute, in so far as they are not

inconsistent with the provisions of this Act.

5 of 1956. 39. (1) The Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, 1956 is hereby Repeal
and
repealed. barings.

(2) Notwithstanding such repeal, the provisions of the said Act set out in the

Schedule shall continue to have effect.

Provided that in the said provisions, the expression, "this Act" means the said

provisions,

THE SCHEDULE

(See section 39)
Declaration
Provisions of the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, 1956,
of the Indian
Institute of
continued in force. Technology
(Kharagpur)
2. Whereas the objects of the institution known as the Indian Institute of as an
institution
Technology at Kharagpur in the district of Midnapore in the State of West of national
importance.
Bengal are such as to make the Institution one of national importance, it is

hereby declared that the institution known as the Indian Institute of

Technology, Kharagpur, is an institution of national importance.

249

3. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-

(a) "Board" means the Board of Governors of the Institute;
Definitions.
(b) "Chairman" means the Chairman of the Board;

(c) "Director" means the Director of the Institute;

(d) "Institute" means the Institute known as the Indian Institute of Technology,

Kharagpur, incorporated under this Act.

4. (1) The first Chairman, the first Director and the first members of the

Board who shall be the

persons appointed in this behalf by the Central Government, by notification in

the Official Gazette, and all persons, who may hereafter be - come or be

appointed as officers or members of the Board, so long as they continue to hold

such office of membership, are hereby constituted a body corporate by the

name of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

(2) The Institute shall have perpetual succession and a common seal, and shall

sue and be sued by the said name.
Transfer of
Service of 5. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, every person who is permanently
existing
employees employed in the
of the Indian
Institute of Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur immediately before the
Technology
at commencement of this Act shall, on and from such commencement, become
Kharagpur.
an employee of the Institute and shall hold his office or service therein by the

same tenure, at the same remuneration and upon the same terms and

conditions and with the same rights and privileges as to pension, leave,

gratuity, provident fund and other matters as he would have held the same on

the date of commencement of this Act if this Act had not been passed.

250

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) the Institute may,

with the prior approval of the Visitor, alter the terms and conditions of any

employee specified in sub-section (i), and if the alteration is not acceptable to

such employee, his employment may be terminated by the Institute in

accordance with the terms of the contract with the employee or, if no provision

is made therein in this behalf, on payment to him by the Institute of

compensation equivalent to three months' remuneration.

(3) Every person employed in the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur

other than any such person as is referred to in sub-section (1) shall, on and

from the commencement of this Act become an employee of the Institute upon

such terms and conditions as may be provided for in the Statutes, and until

such provision is made, on the terms and conditions applicable to him

immediately before such commencement.

251

Acknowledgements

The Committee would like to thank Shri Kapil Sibal, Hon. Minister, Ministry of Human
Resource Development, for this opportunity to participate in this important effort. The
Committee feels that the recommendations being made would make a significant positive
difference not only to IITs but to higher technical education scenario in the country as a whole.

The Committee wishes to acknowledge the generous help it has received from a large number of
people.

Prof. M. Anandakrishnan, Prof. Gautam Barua and Prof. T. A. Gonsalves joined the committee
in its deliberations and made valuable contributions towards arriving at its recommendations.

The Committee had co-opted Dr. K. Sudhakar, Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering,
IIT Bombay, and Dr. S. Ramesh Babu, Associate Vice President, Education and Research
Department, Infosys. The Committee would like to thank both of them for their participation in
this work and their sustained support in the Committee’s work.

The Committee would also like to thank:

Dr. G.S. Bhuvaneshwar, Head, Biomedical Technology Wing, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for
Medical Sciences & Technology and Adjunct Professor, IIT Madras, Shri. S.Balram, Scientist F,
Quality Cell at the institute and their colleagues for their help in formulating the questionnaire
for seeking stakeholder inputs as well as the format for performance assessment.

A.S. Shaja, Research Scholar, and Mahesh, Project Assistant at the Department of Aerospace
Engineering, IIT Bombay, for designing and hosting the online survey seeking stakeholder
inputs.

A total of 3755 stakeholders, ranging from alumni, current students and faculty of IITs,
industries which interact with the IITs, educationists, and the public at large who are not directly
connected to IIT took time off to give their inputs through the online survey. Many of them
provided detailed comments in the textboxes. These inputs provided the Committee with
stakeholders’ expectations from the IITs.

253

Two teams painstakingly did the content analysis of stakeholder inputs. The first team at IIT
Bombay was led by Dr. (Ms) Karuna Jain, Head, SJM School of Management, IIT Bombay, and
consisted of her enthusiastic band of students Disha Bhanot, Govind Srivastava, Mengist H.
Tadesse, Mukundan R., Ruchita Gupta, Sasadhar Bera, Sarang Kulkarni, Sheila Rao and Thiagu
Ranganathan. Another vibrant student team at IIT Madras consisted of Vaishnavi Surendra,
Aadya Singh, Gayathri Vijayaraghavan, Aditi Balachandar, Sunny Swetank and Althaf Shajahan.

Directors of all IITs, who had 3 joint meetings with the Committee to first share their ideas and
then to provide valuable comments on the report as it gradually took shape;

Faculty members at IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay, who
interacted with the Committee whenever it met at their premises and provided a rich diversity of
viewpoints;

IIT Council, Ministries of GoI and Industry Associations for their valuable consultations and
inputs;

Prof G.G. Ray and Ms Parul Bhatti, IDC, IIT Bombay, for the cover design and layout and Ms
Roopa Sharma for editing the report;

The Ministry of Human Resource Development for supporting the Committee’s work at
different stages; and

IIT Bombay, Infosys, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and CSIR for all logistics
support in connection with the work of the Committee.

254

Kakodkar committeereport 05132011

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