The Union cabinet in a meeting today approved the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public- Private Partnership) Bill, 2017. With the clearance, the institutes will soon have the power to award degrees. The Ministry of Human Resource and Development is also planning to declare them as “institutions of national importance.”
The ministry had prepared a draft bill which was sent to cabinet for approval.
Earlier, speaking to PTI, a senior official said that a draft bill was already sent to the cabinet for the consideration. He also added that It has been proposed that IIITs set up in the PPP mode be considered as institutions of national importance to give them power to grant degrees.
The governmnt had announced to come up with around 20 new Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs) in the country under PPP mode, from which 15 are functional already in Chittor (AP), Guwahati, Vadodara, Kota, Srirangam (Tamil Nadu), Una (Himachal Pradesh), Sonepat (Haryana), Kalyani (WB), Lucknow, Nagpur, Pune, Ranchi, Kottayam, Kurnool (AP)and Dharwad (Karnataka).
The cost of each institute is Rs 128 crore. It is contributed by the Centre, state government and the industry in ratio of 50:35:15.
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Last year, the ministry had decided to bring a a “separate bill” to govern the affairs of institutes which are functioning under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. It had also decided to permit increased admission of foreign students in institutes and prepare a strategy for brand building these institutes.
(With inputs from PTI)