Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology[1] (IIEST) are institutes proposed by the Government of India to meet the growing demand for engineering and scientific manpower to meet India’s increased industrialization. The proposed IIESTs would be created by an act of the Parliament of India. They would be given the status of Institutes of National Importance, on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) by the Indian government. The first institute to actually be granted the IIEST status is Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, which is going to granted the IIEST status from the Academic Year 2011–12 onwards.[2]
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Initially, a group of seven universities have been selected for upgrade to the status of IIT by the S. K. Joshi committee. Since these colleges were controlled by the respective state governments and could not be given IIT status due to political, administrative or technical reasons the MHRD appointed another Committee, called the Anandakrishnan Committee. The committee recommended setting up a new family of institutes by upgrading the selected group of colleges and to be called IIESTs (Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology). Later, the Government of India shortlisted it to five institutions.
As per the discussion with the Committee members, the IIESTs are supposed to receive funding similar to that of IITs after the planned upgrade over next five years. IIESTs can achieve more government support/funding by uniting together on a collective bargaining principle. Each college will receive one-time amount (spread over five years) of Rs. 500 crores (Rs. 5 billion or $ 125 million) for infrastructure improvement and annual funding of Rs. 50 crores.
The five institutions have been short-listed based on the final Anandakrishnan report are as follows:
As of October 2010[update], of the original five institutions, the government has decided IT-BHU will be upgraded to an IIT.[3] Of the other four, the only institution on which the government has moved forward was BESU,[2] As for CUSAT, the proposal was rejected in November 2010 by the state government. The then Education Minister of Kerala, M. A. Baby, has said since CUSAT is already a university the status change will only downgrade it, and that they are seeking an upgrade to an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) instead.[4] However, with the change of government following the elections in 2011, P. K. Abdu Rabb, the next Minister of Education, said they have given up on upgrade to IIT, and are seeking upgrade to IIEST again.[5] The rest of the institutes are being kept pending.