The recent recommendation of NASSCOM for 20 new IIITs did not include a location in Chhatisgarh. However, as per a recent report in Economic Times Minister of State Mr. Jairam Ramesh has announced the establishment of a IIIT in Chhatisgarh. Following is an excerpt from that report.
"The state government thanks Minister of State for Power and Commerce Jairam Ramesh for announcing at a function held Friday at Sipat in Bilaspur district to set up an IIIT in Chhattisgarh," a government press statement said.
"The state government will soon provide the location for the new IIIT as the announcement was made by the central minister as per the initiatives taken by Chief Minister Raman Singh April 20 when they had a meeting in Raipur," the statement read.
Officials said that the state government may offer a massive plot for the IIIT in Naya Raipur where the government is presently developing a new satellite town that will replace Raipur as the new state capital of Chhattisgarh, probably by 2011.
Naya Raipur, about 20 km east of here and located between national highways 6 and 43, will be spread out over 8,000 hectares.
Regardless of the NASSCOM recommendation the Orissa government and Minister of state Mr. Chandrasekhar Sahu must push for a IIIT in Berhampur, the third largest metropolitan area of Orissa. (The other two, Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, have other national institutions.)
June 1st, 2008
Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindu. (NASSCOM’s press release is here.)
The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) on Thursday suggested the 20 cities for setting up new Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT).
Delhi, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore and Jammu are among the cities suggested.
… In its model detailed project report (DPR) presented to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Nasscom, the trade body representing the Indian information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry, has also included the names of Chandigarh, Dehradun, Lucknow, Patna, Shillong, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Nagpur, Bhubaneshwar, Pune, Visakhapatanam, Mysore, Mangalore and Coimbatore for establishing new IIITs. PPP model
In its model DPR that will serve as a template for the preparation of the DPR for each individual IIIT, Nasscom has proposed that the new IIITs be set up as a fully autonomous institutions, through a public-private partnership (PPP) model. The partners in setting up the IIITs should be the Ministry, the respective State governments and industry members.
National importance
According to Nasscom president Som Mittal, each IIIT has been envisioned to become a world-class academic institute and evolve into technology and functional ‘Centres of Excellence’ through a strong focus on research in frontier technology areas.
To achieve this, it is imperative to attract best-in-class faculty, and students; develop sustainable linkages with industry; and provide an environment conducive for research excellence.
To justify the large investments being made in the IIITs, it is important that they provide a sufficient scale at undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral research levels, he added. …
Autonomy
“The model for the new IIITs proposed in the DPR focuses on both academic and research excellence through innovative governance and operational approaches and a strong and sustained participation from the IT industry.
“However, achieving this will not be easy and it is important that each institute is supported, especially in the initial years, and is also allowed complete autonomy to define its roadmap and implement it,” Mr. Mittal added.
Following are some excerpts from a report in Business Standard.
While required investment into the IIITs could vary depending on the city, close to Rs 100 crore has been estimated for each IIIT. …
The locations of IIITs have been arrived at on the basis of how well connected they are in terms of transport and facilities and their prominence to industrial hubs. Considering the dire faculty crunch in the country, Nasscom has made it clear that faculty members must be be given salaries prevalent in the market.
It has been suggested that each IIIT must have the autonomy to decide its own salary structure to compete with private educational institutes. Collaborating private organisations would be requested to send their experienced employees as visiting faculty members. A higher number of visiting faculty and faculty-exchange programmes with universities in India and abroad have been suggested.
…
The report says all programmes in an IIIT should be given equal importance, having noted that generally it is the undergraduate programme in institutes that receives most of the attention. It has been suggested that other post-graduate programmes, especially the PhD programmes, should not be compromised with.
The development of the PhD programme, according to one of the suggestions, is vital to the growth of IIITs as these doctoral students could be groomed for teaching positions in IIITs, creating a strong pool of candidates for top academic positions.
It has been recommended that the undergraduate programme of IIITs could be scaled up to 600 students, the post-graduate programme could take about 400 students and the PhD programme could have an intake of 100 students.
A faculty-student ratio of 1:14 has been suggested. The report has suggested an integrated campus model and a hub-and-spoke campus model, depending on the IIIT.
The Orissa government has to figure out a way to have this IIIT in Berhampur and if not then convince the central govt. to establish one of the proposed 10 NITs in Berhampur.
May 23rd, 2008
Following is from Volume 2 of the expenditure of Budget 2008-09.
- NISER/IOP: The IOP+NISER budget (item 9.04 of the DAE budget) is 69 crores in plan + 9 crores in non-plan = 78 crores. The nornal IOP budget is about 20 crores. Hence, 50-58 crores is the budget for NISER in 2008-09. (Note that in 2007-08 IOP was allocated 32.75+7 crores and it spent 27.6+8 = 35.6 crores. I..e, Probably 15-18 crores were spent for NISER. )
- IISER: There is a budget of 150 crores (item 61 of the Higher education budget) for the five IISERs. (The budget for three of them was 125 crores in 2007-08, out of which only 60 crores was spent.)
- new IITs: There is a budget of 50 crores (item 60 of the Higher education budget) for the establishment of three new IITs. (The budget for them was 80 crores in 2007-08, out of which only 0.01 crores was spent.)
- new IIITs: There is a budget of 21.4 crores (item 57 of the Higher education budget) for the establishment of new IIITs.
- AIIMS-like: There is a total budget of 490 crores (item 26 of the Health ministry budget) for the establishment of 6 new AIIMS-like institutes and upgradation of 10 other institutes. In 2007-08 the budget for this was 150 crores out of which only 90 crores was spent; most of it went to the upgradation part.
- NITs: The budget for the NITs (item 69 of the Higher education budget) is 808 (plan) + 285 (non-plan) = 1093 crores. Rs 608 crores of that is for enhancing the number of students to account for the OBC quota.
- IITs: The budget for the IITs (item 38 of the Higher education budget) is 1171 (plan) + 525 (non-plan) = 1696 crores. Rs 771 crores of that is for enhancing the number of students to account for the OBC quota.
- IISc Bangalore: The budget for the IISc (item 41 of the Higher education budget) is 130 (plan) + 91 (non-plan) = 221 crores. Rs 70 crores of that is for enhancing the number of students to account for the OBC quota.
- UGC: The budget for UGC (item 3 of the Higher education budget) is 3095.5 (plan) + 2009.4 (non-plan) = 5104.9 crores. Rs 875 crores of that is for enhancing the number of students to account for the OBC quota.
- NIRTAR and other 6 institutes for blind, deaf, mentally retarded and orthopaedically handicapped: The budget for them (item 21 of Ministry of Social Justice budget) is 47+27.05 crores.
- IIST (Indian Inst. of Space Sc. & Tech): Its budget (item 12 of ministry of space) is 65.25 crores. 25 crores out of a budgeted 75 crores was spent in 2007-08.
- ISIs: Its budget (item 4 of ministry of statistics) is 22.5 + 51.96 crores.
- NIFT: Its budget (item 11.01 of ministry of Textile) is 31.75 + 10 crores.
- Tourism: Its budget for training (item 5 of Tourism ministry) is 71 + 0.8 crores. It includes 26 Institutes of Hotel management, 7 Foodcraft institutes, IITTM, and NIWS (National Institute of Water Sports).
- CIPET: Its budget (item 2 of Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers) for the 15 centers is 31 crores.
- NIPER, Mohali: Its budget (item 7 of Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers) is 75+15 crores.
- National Institute of design: Its budget for (item 3 of ministry of commerce) is only 0.25 crores. It was 20.25 crores in 2007-08. It seems the funding pattern has been changed. There is now 50 crores (item 7 of ministry of commerce) for project based support to autonomous institutions which includes NID and several other institutions.
February 29th, 2008
Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer. Tathya.in also has a report on this.
… The NIT’s alumni, who are placed in high and respectable places, have raised serious concern over the nomination of the chairman of its Board of Governors. The names recommended by the authorities for the post do not go well with the alumni, who are concerned about the future of the NIT.
The name of a Congress leader of little standing has been recommended by the Government for the top post, revealed Sandip Das Verma, a leading non-resident Oriya (NRO) and an alumnus of NIT. According to sources, Pramod Pradhan, who belongs to the Congress from Rourkela, has been recommended by the Government for the post of chairman along with two other persons.
The sources said three names such as Drona Rath, CMD of MECON and an alumnus of NIT, BN Singh, Managing Director of Rourkela Steel Plant and Pramod Pradhan have been recommended to the President of India. One these names will be picked up for the post.
In his reaction, Das Verma has raised serious doubts over the Government’s sincerity in raising the status of the NIT by recommending the name of a little-known politician for the top post of the premier institution. The NIT’s Board now has two eminent engineers, who are Padmashree and one of them NR Mohanty could have been recommended for the Chairman’s post, said a leading industrialist.
The immediate past chairman was Dr Banshidhar Panda, a top industrialist of the State. Biju Patnaik was also once the chairman of the NIT Board.
October 4th, 2007
Following are excerpts on this from the PIB that mainly talks about the establishment of a new steel center at IIT Kharagpur.
The Empowered committee also cleared a proposal to create a post of Chair professor in the Department of Metallurgy in IIT, Kharagpur, Benaras Hindu University and NITS at Rourkela, Durgapur and Jamshedpur and other institutes, where study of Metallurgical Engineering is pursued at a salary at par with the individual institute’s norm. These institutions will also provide scholarships to five undergraduate students in each of them to pursue studies in areas related to iron and steel. The undergraduate scholarships will carry a monthly stipend of Rs.4000 per month during the entire period of the course.
August 17th, 2007
Dr. R. K. Ghosh pointed us to a Forbes article by the Editor in Chief of JACM. Following is an excerpt from it.
The U.S. produces about 1,400 Ph.D.s in computer science annually and China about 3,000. By stark comparison, India’s annual computer science Ph.D. production languishes at roughly 40. That number is about the same as that for Israel, a nation with roughly 5% of India’s population size.
While India needs all the new IITs, IIITs and Central Universities that the PM announced during his Aug 15 speech, one wonders where from these institutions will get Ph.Ds for their faculty. The government and the IT industry must brainstorm together and come up with a strategy to tackle this. Following are some initial un-coordinated half-baked thoughts.
- Start motivating good students from an early age about the value of research. This can be done through science magnet schools.
- In IITs and IISc and may be a few other selected institutions have a track similar to MD/PH.D tracks in US medical schools. Students in this track would pursue a B.Tech-P.hD program (no need for MS) and would be given a generous stipends.
- To allow more time for IIT/IISc faculty to pursue research and guide Ph.D students these institutions (especially their CS depts.) should take in more M.Tech students and let them do most of the teaching.
- Government should open special graduate centers in IT/Computer Science (may be as branches of exisiting IITs) that only focus on research. For example, the IIT Kharagpur center in Bhubaneswar may house a faculty of 5-10 CS professors and offer *only* a Ph.D program in computer science. Such centers may have affiliated faculty (who have Ph.Ds) from nearby engineering colleges. Such centers should be slowly opened in every metropolitan area with 15+ engineering colleges. (The IIITs could have served this purpose but it seems most IIITs are focusing on undergraduate education. Exceptions are IIIT Hyderabad, which has a good research program; IIIT Bangalore which only offers M.Tech and Ph.D and the nascent IIIT Bhubaneswar which will also only have M.Tech and Ph.D program, at least in the beginning. )
- Government needs to offer better salary and perks to professors so that more students are attracted to a career in academia.
August 17th, 2007
The PM’s independence day speech will be remembered for a long time for its groundbreaking educational steps. Here, we analyze them vis-a-vis Orissa.
- K-12
- "We will support 6,000 new high quality schools — one in every block of the country" [Orissa has 314 blocks. Currently the central govt has three kinds of schools: Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas and Ekalabya Vidyalayas. My guess is these will be Navodaya Vidyalayas. Until now, Navodaya Vidyalayas were being made one per district. Extending it to one per block will do wonders.]
- Higher education
- "We will also ensure that adequate numbers of colleges are set up across the country, especially in districts where enrollment levels are low. We will help States set up colleges in 370 such districts." [Orissa has 30 districts. As per the NSSO study of 2004-2005, Table 3.14.1 shows that in the 15-19 age group 29% people in Orissa are attending school/college and in the 20-24 age group this number for Orissa is 6.1%. (Both numbers are lowest among all but the small states/UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep.) For the Scheduled Tribe population these numbers are 17.1% for the 15-19 age group and 4.1% for the 20-24 age group.]
- "We will set up thirty new Central Universities. Every state that does not have a central university will now have one." [Orissa does not have one so it should get one. But considering that there are 23 other existing central universities, making it a total of 53 central universities, Orissa should get two.]
- "we are setting up five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research" [The five IISERs are at Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal, and Trivendrum. A NISER is being set up in Bhubaneswar.]
- "eight new Indian Institutes of Technology" [Three of these IITs are announced to be in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Orissa should get one of the other five IITs.]
- "seven new Indian Institutes of Management" [Announcements have been made with respect to Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Shillong. If Orissa gets a new IIT then its chance of getting a new IIM this round is much less. Orissa should try though.]
- "twenty new Indian Institutes of Information Technology." [There will be one in each main states, including Orissa, which does not have one. Existing ones are at Allahabad, Amethi, Jabalpur, and Gwalior and a new one is being established at Kanchipuram. ]
- Vocational Education
- "We will soon launch a Mission on Vocational Education and Skill Development, through which we will open 1600 new industrial training institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics, 10,000 new vocational schools and 50,000 new Skill Development Centres."
- "We will ensure that annually, over 100 lakh students get vocational training – which is a four-fold increase from today’s level."
- More scholarships
- "We should seek not just functional literacy, but good quality education – education that is affordable, accessible, equitable – and available to every boy and girl who seeks to study. For the needy we will provide more scholarships."
August 16th, 2007
Update: The NIT statutes based on this act was pubslished in the Gazette in April 2009. A copy of it is at https://www.orissalinks.com/bigfiles/NIT%20statutes.pdf. Thanks to the reader who commented on this.
The NIT (National Institutes of Technology) act becomes effective Aug 15 2007. There is a similar act for the IITs; but the NITs did not have one earlier. By virtue of this act NITs now become "Institutes of National Importance (INI)." Thus the proposed IIESTs, which will also be accorded INI status will not necessarily have a higher status than NITs.
August 14th, 2007
I came across this Allahbad bank site about education loans. They give loans up to 4 lakhs without any collateral security to students of a selected list of colleges/institutes. The current list includes four Orissa institutes. They are:
- AMITY Bhubaneshwar
- XIM Bhubneswhwar
- Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT)
- NIT Rourkela
July 31st, 2007
From an NIT Rourkela faculty:
Our institute has become the first among all NITs to earn the trust of SBI to sanction study loan to our students by the NIT campus branch itself ( in stead of the branches located in their native places) without asking for any sort of security. This facility was earlier available only to reputed institutes like IIT and IIM under Scholar Plus Scheme.
The story behind how this was achieved:
This has become possible due to strong follow up and bargain made by our director insisting on exclusive new ATM counter in the campus, Internet banking facility to all students (now students need not stand in the queue to pay fees in cash/cheque either in institute or halls) and this study loan, otherwise we would have given permission to other banks to open their branches in the campus to break the monopoly of SBI since inception.
Tathya.in also reports on this.
(Thanks to Sandip babu for this information.)
July 18th, 2007
The following are some instructions about the previous posting titled "Orissa engineering colleges in the AICTE list and their number of seats (July 12 2007)."
It is from http://www.aicte.ernet.in/approval/engg_LIST/Orissa.doc (as of July 12 2007) reached via http://www.aicte.ernet.in/app_inst_new.htm after clicking the scrolling sentence in AICTE web page that says "Approval status 2007-08 as on 05-07-2007." The Orissa JEE counseling brochure has a few other colleges that are not in this list. For BPUT to put them in the Orissa JEE counseling brochure these colleges must have some sort of approval. Beyond that I can not guess why they are not in the latest AICTE list. Sometimes AICTE has multiple lists in its web pages. If people have doubts about these colleges they should ask BPUT to give them some written guarantee/proof regarding these colleges when counseling or during admission.
The last two columns of that article denote "Existing intake for 2006-07" and "Approved intake for 2007-08." Please note that they are not properly aligned. (I am having problems with the editor when copying and pasting from word documents.)
July 12th, 2007
Dataquest magazine has published its 2007 ranking. The Orissa Colleges in their ranking are:
- (16) NIT Rourkela : 24 in 2006, 17 in 2005
- (90) UCE Burla: 55 in 2006
- (108) CET Bhubaneswar: 47 in 2006
- (110) Orissa Engineering college, Bhubaneswar: 82 in 2006, 61 in 2005
Only NIT Rourkela improved its ranking from 2006; ranking of others have dropped.
NIT Rourkela also features in the top five engineering colleges in the eastern region. They are:
- (1) IIT Kharagpur
- (6) IIT Guwahati
- (14) Jadavpur University Engineering College
- (16) NIT Rourkela
- (19) BIT Ranchi
As always, these are just one ranking.
June 29th, 2007
Business Standard reports that central minister Chandrasekhar Sahu is pursuing with the central government regarding establishing three marquee institutions in South Orissa. Following is an excerpt of that:
While the first Central University is likely to be set up in Koraput, plans for an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) and National Institute of Design (NID) in Berhampur are in the works. …
Sahu also said he has discussed the possibility of a National Institute of Design (NID) and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) being set up in Berhampur and Bhubaneswar. The recent discussions with the Union minister for commerce, Kamal Nath, and the minister for textiles, Shankarsingh Veghela, “were very positive and they assured us that they are willing to establish these institutes if the state government extended its cooperation,†said Sahu. …
While the Central University and IIIT are under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, the NID is under the Ministry of Commerce. NIFT and NIHT come under the Ministry of Textiles.
Lets analyze this. First of all if all these materializes then its great. However lets compare what Orissa will be getting vis-a-vis the other states.
- In the Central University front, the central university in Koraput should be a distributed kind like the proposed Indira Gandhi National Tribal University. It should be designed such that it has branches in all KBK+ districts from the start.
- The tribal population percentage of the KBK districts are as follows: 8 KBK districts total 38.72% (+ 16.63 % SC). Malkangiri 58.36% (+19.96% SC), Rayagada 56.04% (+14.28% SC), Nabarangpur 55.27% (+15.09% SC), Koraput 50.67% (+13.41% SC), Nuapada 35.95% (+13.09% SC), Kalahandi 28.88% (+17.01% SC), Sonepur 22.11% (+9.5% SC), Balangir 22.06% (+15.39% SC). Two adjacent districts also have high tribal population. They are Kandhamala 51.51% (+18.21% SC) and Gajapati 47.88% (+8.77% SC).
- The literacy rates in the KBK districts are as follows: Overall in 8 KBK districts 36.58% with the female literacy at 24.72%. Malkangiri 31.26%, Nabarangpur 34.26%, Rayagada 35.61%, Koraput 36.2%, Nuapada 42.29%, Kalahandi 46.2%, Balangir 54.93%, Sonepur 64.07%. Two adjacent districts also have low literacy: Gajapati 41.73% and Kandhamala 52.95%. The state average is 63.1%.
- India already has 20 central universities and if 30 more are going to be made then besides the central university in Koraput one of the other universities in Orissa should also be upgraded to a central university.
- There will be 19 new IIITs. Orissa will be getting one of them. This is good but does not take Orissa out of the bottom of MHRD spending
- NID is good. But it does not replace the IIT that was taken away from Orissa. The 2007-08 budget for the 7 IITs is a total of 1553.70 cores (i.e., an average of 221.96 crores) while the 2007-08 budget for NID is 20.25 crores.
- Hence, Orissa must: (a) continue to push for an IIT in Orissa; (b) push for the Central University in Koraput to have branches in the KBK+ districts from the very beginning; (c) this central university should have special quote for tribals and locals as is the case in many north eastern states and as will be the case in the Indira Gandhi national tribal university; (d) push for one of the other universities in Orissa to be upgraded to a central university; (e) Make sure branches of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University exist in the north western districts with high tribal population, in particular Mayurbhanj (tribal percentage 57.87%, literacy 52.43%), Sundergarh (50.74%, 65.22%), and Keonjhar (44.52%, 59.75%); and possibly in Sambalpur (35.08% , literacy 67.01%), Deogarh (33.31%, literacy 60.78%), and Jharsuguda (31.88% , literacy 71.47%).
June 25th, 2007
(Update on June 17 2008: For guidance on what you can get with your Orissa JEE rank in 2008, please see https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1185 I do not have more information than that.)
June 11 edition of Outllook has rankings of engineering colleges, medical colleges, and some specialty colleges. Only two Orissa colleges appear in those rankings. In the ranking of govt. engineering colleges NIT Rourkela appears at number 28 with a total score of 1437. In the ranking of private engineering colleges KIIT Bhubaneswar appears at 37 with a total score of 1073. If one were to combine both rankings then NIT Rourkela would be 32 as four private coleges have a higher score than NIT Rourkela. In the 2006 Outlook ranking of top 100 engineering colleges NIT Rourkela was 34 and KIIT was ranked 100. So NIT Rourkela improved by two positions. To figure out if KIIT improved its ranking one has to count how many private colleges were there in the 2006 top 100 ranking. A quick count, which may be slightly inaccurate as it is not easy to identify all private colleges in a list, shows that in 2006 KIIT was 50 among the private colleges; so it seems to have improved its ranking by 13 positions.
June 14th, 2007
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