CET row: IIT Senate members to meet PM today

In a bid to seeking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in HRD Ministry's latest proposal of conducting Common Entrance Test (CET) for all IIT and other centrally funded technical institutes, the Senate members of the seven IITs will set to meet PM today.

The leaders of the All India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIITFF) is opposing the Central government's 'One nation, one Test' proposal alleging that it will compromises with their autonomy and will affect standards maintained at the institutions.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal who is at present in US for his high level official tour has denied to roll back the new proposal arguing that government has no intension to hamper the autonomy of IITs, nor this proposal will do so.

The aspirants and faculties of IIT Kanpur had opposed the government's decision, which was backed by other IITs. They have asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in this matter and wrote a letter to Prime Minister Office (PMO). The representatives of IIT alumni and faculties Thursday meet senior PMO officials and called the meeting positive.

On May 28 HRD Ministry had announced that from 2013, aspiring candidates for IITs and other central institutes like NITs and IIITs will have to sit under a new format of common entrance test, which will also take the plus-two board results into consideration.

Opposing the proposal of ministry, IIT Kanpur has said that any changes in IIT entrance exams should be done from 2014 onwards while for the year 2013, there should be current format of IIT Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE).