Six New IIM's and Four New IIT's

The government has granted permission to start four new IIT's and 6 new IIM's in the country operating from this academic year. After months of politics and bureaucratic argument with various state governments, the Union HRD Ministry has finally selected the states which will get new IIMs and IITs.

Six new Indian Institute of Management's - IIM's will be set up in Jammu & Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand. While four new Indian Institute of Technology's -IIT's will be located in Orissa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.

The location of the new higher education institutions has been approved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and HRD Minister Arjun Singh. Earlier, the government had announced four new IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh, and an IIM at Shillong.

These new institutions would be part of the eight IITs and seven IIMs proposed to be set up during the 11th Five Year Plan. The government will spend Rs760 crore for starting every new IIT and Rs250 crore for every new IIM. The launch is part of the 11th Plan (2007-12).

Apart from new IITs and IIMs, 14 world-class central universities will be set up in Pune, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mysore, Visakhapatnam, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Patna, Bhopal, Kochi, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Greater Noida and Guwahati.

Reason for Setting up New Institutions:

According to the sources from HRD Ministry the reason behind setting up new institutions was the decrease in the number of students opting for MBA as th spike on CAT aspirants was just 2 lakhs morethan last year.

To a question whether the decision to set up these new institutions was based on political considerations, HRD misnister said that the government has decided on these Institutions taking everything into consideration. He also that the locations has been decided keeping in mind the connectivity and the infrastructure which such universities would need and it is meant to give a boost to the towns.

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