Some news on the locations of new IITs and IIMs
August 21st, 2007
Following are excerpts from a Business Standard report.
The eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced, are likely to come up in the states of Orissa, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland.
An official source said the government was working on ways to give these institutes an even, regional spread.
The states will be selected on the basis of their economic and social status. A count is being done on the number of engineering and management colleges that these states have currently and their student population.
For instance, Jammu and Kashmir has a high chance of getting either an IIT or an IIM as it has only five engineering colleges and four management colleges affiliated to the University of Jammu and University Kashmir.
Among the states in the West, Rajasthan could also be considered as Gujarat and Maharashtra already have an IIM and an IIT, respectively. In the East, with Shillong having an IIM now and Guwahati having an IIT, Mizoram and Nagaland could stand a chance, said a source close to the development.
Among the southern states, Andhra Pradesh could get an IIM or an IIT as Bangalore and Kozhikode have an IIM each and Chennai boasts of an IIT.
The idea of choosing these states to establish these centres of excellence is to maintain a regional balance in the country. This will be done keeping in mind the government?s inclusive growth agenda, the source added.
This is a very speculative news and the writer is unaware that IITs for Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan have already been announced, and IIMs for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have also been announced earlier.
In regards to Orissa, if it comes down to be a choice between an IIT and an IIM, it is definitely preferable to get an IIT, as Orissa already has a top notch business school in XIM, an IIT can have its own business school, and the investment in an IIT is more than 10 times than that of an IIM.
Business Standard also has another article. Following are some excerpts from it.
Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced the setting up of eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), seven Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and 30 central universities in his Independence day speech, the government is shortlisting states where the institutes will be located.
Economic Times also has a report which talks about the difficulty and impact of having so many new IITs and IIMs.
Entry Filed under: IIT Kharagpur branch in Bhubaneswar,IIT, oDishA,Odisha, others and the center
2 Writeup
1. R. K. Ghosh | August 23rd, 2007 at 11:35 am
The major concern in building new IITs is definitely the availability of quality faculty as reported in the ET article. The article in Forbes magazine also addressed the same concern in a different track. I think any decision to locate IITs in politically troubled, unstable places and in places not directly connected by air, or train services could spell a doom for these institutions. Even Roorkee University which was undoubtedly one of finest technical universities of its time is finding it hard to get aligned with IIT brand (as the ET article points out). The preferences of “new hires” have been one of the three “metro IITs” (Bombay, Delhi and Madras). I believe neither IIT Patna nor IIT Jaipur will have a easy gestation period. So, any political decision on the locations of 5 other new IITs will make some of them nonstarters from the day one. The brand dilution is a reality that we can no longer escape from. I also believe that the existing IITs will also get affected by relocation of faculty due to opportunities with so many new IITs in the offing.
2. Chitta Baral | October 13th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Based on the above article, and the PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/rel_print_page.asp?relid=2288 which lists the nine states that asked for IITs, my speculation is that:
(i) the 8 new IIts will be in: AP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh (all these are already announced), Gujarat, karnataka, Kerala and Orissa.
(ii) the seven new IIMs will be in: AP, Bihar (already announced), Jharkhand, J & K, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tamilnadu.