IIT Kanpur to host IIT Rajasthan for yet another year

While political exigencies may have compelled the UPA Government to announce an IIM for Rajasthan...

While political exigencies may have compelled the UPA Government to announce an IIM for Rajasthan,owing purely to a typological error in the interim budget document,the Government has not managed to get a site for an IIT in the state for more than a year now.

After having started the first batch of IIT Rajasthan from the IIT Kanpur campus last year,it is expected that the second batch will also have to start its academic session from the mentor institute.

The proposition has IIT Kanpur worried. While classrooms and laboratories will be able to just about squeeze in one extra batch of students,about 120,the institute is faced with the problem of accommodating another set of students.

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To accommodate the first batch of IIT Rajasthan students,we had to redesign the staff bungalows last year and we just about managed. To provide accommodation to one more batch,will be difficult. We are examining all possibilities and we hope that during the next academic session,a suitable site will be found for IIT Rajasthan, said Prof S G Dhande,Director IIT Kanpur.

All older IITs were asked to mentor and help setting up the six new IITs that were started by the HRD Ministry last year. IIT Rajasthan,is accordingly,being mentored by IIT Kanpur and operating temporarily from the same campus.

The state and Centre have been engaged in a long-going tug of war over the site selection for IIT Rajasthan an issue pending since 2006 end when an IIT for the state was first announced by the Centre.

While the BJP Government in the state lost the chance to inaugurate an IIT in Rajasthan,owing to its insistence on Kota as the one and only site for the institute,the Human Resource Development Ministry advocated Jaipur as the best possible site. The ministry has been opposed to Kota as an IIT site as the place is known for its IIT coaching centres and that,the ministry feels could affect faculty and student profile there.

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The ministry was confident that the Ashok Gehlot Government would quickly sign on the dotted line for Jaipur. But that has not happened even after four months of Congress rule in the state. It is learnt that Gehlot is proposing that the IIT be given to Jodhpur,his constituency. The proposal has put the ministry in a spot,as all its surveys have suggested Jaipur to be the best site.