The curious case of eight new IITs….

In 2008, the honourable Govt of India announced the setting up of eight new IITs in our country. The logic was that since IIT has the ability to produce world beaters year after year, why not enhance their presence throughout India, and give a chance to more number of students to receive top grade technical education.

The gesture was very noble indeed from our educated and suave Prime Minister but some serious questions were begging to be answered. The “Brand India” image that the original 5 IITs (IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay and IIT Chennai) managed to create was because they were only 5 in number. Number of quality faculty was adequate, the seats were lesser, and only the most meritorious of students got the best attention from the best professors. The results were there for all to see. The IIT pass-outs turned out to be world beaters in one form or the other.

Then two new IITs were introduced – Roorkee engineering college was converted to IIT Roorkee, and IIT Guwahati was flagged off. The alarming thing is in the yearly IIT ratings, these two redbrick institutes of excellence have always shared the 6th and 7th spots – they have never been able to better the performance and infrastructure of the previous 5 IITs. The message, I thought, should have been loud and clear. You cannot force quality out of any institute just by naming it as an IIT. The infrastructure, quality of research and the student quality also matters. Right now, even the premiere IITs lack quality faculty. The really good professors have started retiring and there is no adequate back up for them, because in our country, the remuneration for professors and research associates are so low, that brilliant students never take up teaching. So from where do you get quality professors??

Even as the existing ones were gasping for breath, 8 new IITs were announced – IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Ropar, IIT Patna, IIT Kota, IIT Bhuvaneshwar, IIT Indore and IIT Mandi. IIT Indore and IIT Mandi will start functioning from this session while the rest have already started from last session. It is heard that IT-BHU is also about to be converted to an IIT.

I genuinely feel that these new institutes should never be called “IITs” as that would dilute the original IIT brand. Let them first prove to the world that they can also produce world beaters year after year who can do our nation proud. I feel, this would be very difficult for the newly formed institutes of excellence, as the faculty quality is not there. Although each of the new so called “IITs” I have mentioned have a mentor IIT, still they have a lot of catching up to do with the top five. It just so heartbreaking to see that now every other student will have an “IIT ian” tag, even if they do not deserve it , and the country’s image in front of the world would be at stake. Precious honours like an IIT degree should always be sparingly awarded and rightfully earned and not lavishly distributed. Is somebody listening out there?