New IIITs to be autonomous

In what could be a first of its kind, the proposed 20 Indian Institutes of Information Technology coming up in public-private partnership basis will have autonomous status and the government's investment will be less than the private players.

As per the detailed project report, submitted to the Union HRD Ministry by National Association of Software and Service Companies, each new IIITs will come up in partnership with a group of private companies.

Each IIIT will have a capital base in which the government's contribution will be less than that of the partnering companies.

"The partnering companies will give Rs 15.1 crore (Rs 151 million) while the government will have to provide Rs 14.9 crore (Rs 149 million). The government's share will be less than 50 per cent of the equity," Nasscom Vice President Rajdeep Sahrawat told PTI.

In addition to this, each institute will get Rs 90 crore (Rs 900 million) as repayable loans from the government. The institutes will also raise funds from different other funding agencies.

"The finance minister has already announced that the educational institutes under PPP mode will be provided loan which would be three times more than the promoter's capital.

Hence, we have a similar provision for each institute which will get Rs 90 crore as loan," Sahrawat said.

Nasscom, which was entrusted the job of preparing the DPR for IIITs, said each institute will be an autonomous body and would have full authority to deal with administration, syllabus, salary, intake and fee.