New Delhi (NVI): Rajya Sabha today today passed a bill declaring five newly established Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) as institutions of national importance.
These IIITs have been set up as Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and are located in Surat, Bhopal, Bhagalpur, Agartala, and Raichur.
The Indian Institutes of Information Technology Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was passed by Lok Sabha in the previous session on March 20, 2020.
It was introduced in the Upper House on Monday by the Minister of Education, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
Notably, out of the 25 IIITs in the country, 5 are being run by the central government and 15 IIITs are operating under public-private partnership mode.
Pokhriyal said, “We have brought the proposal before this House to bring five new operational institute which are located and have started operations in Surat (Gujarat), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Agartala (Tripura) and Raichur (Karnataka) under this act.”
He said bringing the five new institutes under IIITs Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 will make them institute of national importance and they will have legal right to issue diploma, degree, PhD etc.
In addition to this, these 5 IIITs along with 15 other IIITs, which are also built on public private partnership (PPP) mode will now be able to use the nomenclature of Bachelor of Technology (BTech) or Master of Technology (MTech) or PhD degree.
It will also enable the institutes to attract enough students required to develop a strong research base in the country in the field of information technology.
The Bill leads to amendment in the Indian Institutes of Information Technology Act, 2014 and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public-Private Partnership) Act, 2017.
At present, the institutes are registered as Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and have no right to grant degrees or diplomas.
-CHK
