NIT Bill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The NIT Bill was an Bill before the Parliament of India to raise the status of many educational institutions, The National Institutes of Technology to that of the Indian Institutes of Technology ("IIT"). It aimed to save much of the money needed to build new IITs.
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[edit] Rationale
In India there has been a long-standing demand for more IITs. The cost of the infrastructure required to create new a IIT from the scratch made the large-scale building of new Institutes impossible.
Therefore the Indian government decided to upgrade all Regional Engineering Colleges ("RECs") to NITs in 2002 and to raise a few other colleges in subsequent years (for instance, Patna,Raipur and Agartala) to NIT status.
After the upgrade NITs were completely under central government control. The Institutes provided potential choice for the government to replicate the IIT system and the Indian government decided to give these Institutes more autonomous powers. The NIT Bill is expected to be implemented from the 2007 academic year and as on March 2007 has been passed by the Rajya Sabha after the changes recommended by the Department related Standing Committee on MHRD.[1]
[edit] What is the NIT Bill
National Institutes Of Technology (NITs) are Premier Institutes in India. With the Indian technology industry booming like never before, the government has decided to upgrade 19 National Institutes of Technology into fully-fledged technical universities. The Bill help satisfy the need of the country for quality manpower in the field of engineering, science and technology and to provide similar governance, similar fee structures and similar rules in all the NITs in the country.
[edit] How it will benefit NITs
Once the Bill is enacted, the societies governing the NITs will cease to exist and the institutes will be placed directly under the administrative control of the HRD ministry with the boards of governors heading affairs. The chairperson of the board will be appointed by the President of India, who will also be visiting each institute. The ministry will also have a say in the appointment of the Director and Deputy Director of each institute.
The NITs have been asked to prepare a vision document on what they could do in the next 25 years. Individual institutes will be permitted to start new courses to cater to the needs of the local industry and wind up unpopular conventional courses. The focus will be on nanotechnology and biotechnology. Plans are afoot to start integrated courses in science and technology along with dual degree programs both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
NITs have been told to increase the student intake in the next five years, with the number of students being doubled to that of the existing strength. The MHRD Ministry plans to increase the number of research fellowship, with as many as 60 to 70 being granted to each institute to enable students to concentrate on new topics of interest. Existing laboratories and libraries will also be upgraded. The NIT Bill is the second law for technical education institutions after the Indian Institutes of Technology Act of 1961.
