26th Apr, 2010: Chief Minister K Rosaiah, today, justified the slashing of 3,000 IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology) seats, saying that the goverment had to take matters of insufficient accommodation, infrastructure to be built and the level of academic clearance into consideration before reaching the conclusion. The decision was taken by the entire cabinet in general, he stated.
The CM was in Anantapur for the second day today, taking part in the Prajapatham programme there.
Funded by the government, the IIIT seats prove invaluable to rural students who are usually deprived of opportunities for technical education. Reduction of seats by 3,000 out of the existing 6,000 in the 3 IIITs of the state - located at Nuzvid, Idupulapaya and Basara - threatens to further hit the opportunities basket of students from rural backgrounds.
These IIITs are part of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT) collection of institutes set up in 2008. They are autonomous, fully residential, and specialize in Information Technology. Each student pays Rs. 6,000 per annum for the 6-year integrated program, and the government bears the rest of the Rs. 1.5 lakh tution fees for every student, also providing a free laptop.
The government had invested Rs. 900 crore into the institutes in the first year of operation in 2008. In 2009, while the government budgeted for Rs. 600 crore, it only disbursed Rs. 240 crore in reality. This year, the allocation has been further reduced to Rs. 100 crore.