Finance Ministry Drops Rs 8,700 Crore Funding To IITs

The Vishwajeet project, proposed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development has been turned down by the Ministry of Finance.

 According to the scheme, Rs 8,700 crore were to be allotted to the top seven Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) for improving infrastructure, hiring foreign faculty members, tie up with international institutions and adopting various other measures to improve QS and Times global rankings.

While each of the top seven premier technological institutes were supposed to use Rs 1,250 crore each over a period of five years, the rejection of this scheme comes as quite a setback to these institutions.

The Finance Ministry has said that the IITs first have to address certain “fundamental issues” such as fixing fees criteria, raising resources from corporates as well as alumni members and strengthening and further improving the existing schemes.

The Finance Minister has also recommended that the human resource development ministry should ask the IITs to construct certain excellent laboratories through recurring grants or Institute of Eminence scheme.

No Indian university figured even in the top 200 band of the Times Higher Education World Rankings 2018 that has triggered concerns over the deteriorating standards of the Indian education system.

The IIT Council has cleared the Vishwajeet Project last year and IITs Delhi, Bombay, Roorkee, Guwahati, Kanpur, Madras and Kharagpur were supposed to receive the funding but due to the slippage of world rankings possibly, the Finance Ministry has taken a step back.

The Vishwajeet project was supposed to provide the seven IITs the financial support required to compete with international educational and infrastructural standards.