The new IITs in the country will get their directors in the next two months after which the institutes will be able to design their roadmaps for campus development and courses from next year.
The names for the posts were scrutinised at a high-level meeting held on Thursday. HRD Minister Arjun Singh is the chairman of the committee involved in the selection of directors.
"The final selection of directors will be over in next two to three weeks. Then it will go Department of Personnel and Training for approval which may take more than a month time," a highly placed official told PTI on Friday.
The HRD ministry had earlier asked the mentoring IITs to propose names for the director posts in the new IITs.
Besides, advertisements were issued seeking application for the posts.
"Unless there is a director, there cannot be any progress for these institutes in having independent campus and starting courses. Once the directors are appointed, the new IITs take up their own activities," he said.
The HRD ministry has already set up a committee, headed by its Additional Secretary Ashok Thakur, for site selection for the IITs.
The government had prepared a set of parameters for choosing the site for an IIT. As per the criteria, the state should provide a location of 500 to 600 acres of land with air, rail and road connectivity.
The committee last week visited Mandi in Himachal Pradesh which has
been proposed by the state government for setting up of an IIT.
Mandi has some problems. The nearest airport is about 60 km away. The report of site selection will take into consideration these factors," a ministry official said.
The proposed IIT in Himachal Pradesh would start functioning from next year.
The committee will now visit the sites offered by Rajasthan, Orissa and Gujarat for inspection.
The other members of the committee are A K Dey, former director if IIT-Bombay, K Narayan Rao, member secretary of AICTE, and the directors of the IITs who have been given the responsibility of mentoring these institutes.
The government has started six new IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Orissa, Punjab and Gujarat from this year. Academic activities in these institutes are either run by certain mentor IITs or held in temporary campuses.
Two other IITs, one in Madhya Pradesh and one in Himachal Pradesh, will commence session from 2009. There is a proposal to upgrade Institute of Technology, BHU, into an IIT.
Prime minister's science advisor C N R Rao had recently expressed unhappiness over the government's initiative to start eight new IITs without campuses. He had stressed on evolving some 'patchwork' to make them viable.
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