Government to set up 4 new IITs, 6 IIMs: Arjun Singh

New Delhi, Mar 28: Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh on Friday said that the Central Government has decided to establish four new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and six Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in various states.

He also stated that some of the state universities would be upgraded to the status of Central Universities. The new IITs will be located in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh (Indore), Gujarat and Punjab, while the IIMs will come up in Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh (Raipur), Uttarakhand and Haryana. The location of the new higher education institutions has been approved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Arjun Singh told reporters here. He further said that the Government proposed to convert the Institute of Technology of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) into an IIT. Admission to BHU is already done through IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).

It is also proposed to establish 14 Universities with world class standards and 16 universities in states which do not have a Central University at present during the Eleventh Five Year plan period, Singh added.

As announced in the Gereral Budget for 2008-09, these new institutions would be part of the eight IITs and seven IIMs proposed to be set up during the Eleventh Five Year Plan.

The Government has already announced establishment of four IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh and one IIM at Shillong.

ANI