Several elite institutions to be set up under 11th Plan

New Delhi, Feb 6 (UNI) A number of elite institutions on the model of IIT and IIMs are in the pipeline.

As many as 20 more industry-oriented Indian Institutes of Information Technologies (IIITs) will be opened in the country besides one IIT each in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and one IIM in Shillong in the North East under the 11th five-year plan .

''The seven IITs and IIMs have served the country well and it is high time that more such institutions were set up to cater to the growing need for trained and highly skilled manpower in the country,'' Minister of State for Human Resource Development(HRD) M A Fatimi said here, while addressing the Editors' Conference on Social Sector here.

The 20 new IIITs will cover almost every state, he said.

Proposals for setting up the new institutions have been sent to the Planning Commission, he said.

In addition to the existing IIITs at Gawalior, Allahabad and Jabalpur, a new IIT(Design and Manufacture) has been approved for Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu.

The Government has also planned to open two more Indian Institutes of Scientific Education and Research(IISER) at Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram. Such institues are already functioning in Kolkata, Pune and Mohali(Punjab).

Mr Fatimi said there was an urgent need to revamp polytechnical education in the country. The annual intake in this sector was 50 per cent of the intake in the degree level engineering institutions, though this ratio should be the other way round, he said, adding that the government proposed to assist states in opening new polytechnics.

UNI