MUMBAI: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are rated as the world’s third best in engineering education, but the directors of the seven elite institutions are currently trying to get the Union HRD ministry to pay their electricity bills on time!
In an indication of a fund crunch at India’s finest educational institutes, IIT-Bombay has recently written to the HRD ministry that they are not in a position to pay next month’s salaries to their staff members. All seven institutes have complained that government allocations are not keeping pace with the rising costs attached to the day-to-day running of these premier institutions.
"We have been drawing money from our corpus and we cannot continue doing that," said IIT-Madras director M S Ananth. The IITs have now asked a Standing Committee headed by Union HRD minister Arjun Singh to release Rs 20 crore per year per IIT so that their money can be returned to the endowment fund, which is usually set aside for long-term use.
Since the inception of the first IITs in the 1950s, they have entirely relied on government patronage. The budgetary allocation in recent years was roughly Rs 550 crore. However, over the last decade, the IITs have had to tap an extensive network of alumni here and abroad to meet growing requirements. A large percentage of new initiatives are also being driven through industry partnerships
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