Fee hike suggested for IITs, Sibal non committal

New Delhi: The Anil Kakodkar panel that had been set up by the
government to bring educational reforms at the Indian Institutes of
Technology (IITs) has stood by their recommendation that may result in
a considerable fee hike for undergraduate courses at the premier
engineering institutes.

The Kakodkar panel had been asked to rework their earlier report on
the road map for providing autonomy to the IITs and their future.

The committee had made a presentation of its reworked report on
Thursday. Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal kept a
non-committal stance regarding the recommendations and said that the
final decision would be taken by the IIT Council later.

The report will be made available on the public domain on Friday.

The panel laid out the roadmap for research at the institutes and said
that the number of PhD students should be increased from the current
1000 students per year to 10,000 by the year 2020-2025.

The panel also recommended that bright undergraduate students should
be enrolled for PhD at the end of their third year. It also said that
the faculty strength at the institutes should be increased from the
current 4000 to 16,000 in the next 10 years.

Another recommendation made by the Kakodkar committee said that 50
institutions other than the IITs funded by the central government
should benefit with the help of the IIT faculty. These institutes will
be the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of
Information Technology (IIIT) and other institutions.

The report that was reworked by the committee further states that the
IITs should recover the full operational cost of education through
their fees and not take any aid from the government's non-planned
budget.

This might result in a substantial increase in the fees of the premier
institutes for which the committee has recommended a "hassle-free"
bank loan arrangement at the time of the IITs' admissions.

Another major suggestion by the panel says that for students who are
from reserved categories and from economically weaker sections of the
society, the ministry should bear the complete operating cost of
education for them.

The recommendations of the panel further added that the ministry
should also take care of the entire cost of education for these
students at the PhD, MS and M.Tech levels as well.

The panel further proposed that the government should make an annual
outlay of Rs1.5 lakh per student in the IITs that are already
established. For the new IITs, the panel suggested that an endowment
grant of Rs.50 crore per IIT should be given over the next five years.

The panel asked the government to give capital fund at the rate of
Rs.20 lakh per additional student.