PM appreciates IITs contribution

Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) has contributed significantly to India's destiny to become a knowledge power, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today inaugurating the sixth annual PAN-IIT Global Conference through video conferencing from his office in national capital of India.

Inaugurating the three-day function, PM said that the reason behind the success of IITs was its autonomy and many other institutes like IITs needed to function in a more autonomous manner.

Appreciating the contributions of IITs community, Dr. Singh said that the IIT community has contributed very significantly to the knowledge economy and knowledge society in India and abroad.

Since last six decades the IIT system has produced over 170,000 graduates in which over one third of alumni have found opportunities in abroad and played crucial role in technical field and glorified the image of India in the West, added PM by emphasising the needs of more knowledge excellence institutes in India to become the world’s knowledge power.

‘So as to make India a knowledge power, the government has so far made a comprehensive plan under the 11th Five Year Plan in which government has decided to open 8 new IITs, 30 new Central Universities, 7 new Indian Institute of Management (IIMs), 10 new National Institutes of Technology (NITs), 20 new Indian Institute of Information Technology (IITs), 5 new Indian Institutes of Science Education (IISEs), 2 new Schools of Planning and Architecture, apart from 373 new Colleges and 1000 new Polytechnics,’ PM told the august gathering.

He further highlighted the need to expand top knowledge institutes in order to exploit many more bright talents who don’t get chance due to “intake capacity constraints”. Prime minister termed this as highly regrettable and said, “If India is to become a global leader in science and technology as well as an economic super power, such talent must not go unutilized.”

Appealing to inject more ideas and initiatives in the contribution of India’s growth, Singh said that there were broader opportunities for such a large and rich community to translate the emerging wonder of ‘India at 60’ into the embodied success of ‘India at 75’.

Dr. Singh also stated that a series of scholarship scheme has been impended for the under-privileged sections of the society to provide them the equal opportunities to obtain the higher education; this would enhance the educational growth of the country.