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Regular board yet to be formed for IIIT-T Srirangam

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Four years after its launch, a permanent governing board is yet to be formed for the Indian Institute of Information Technology-Srirangam (IIIT-T), it is learnt.

Established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) under Not-for-profit Public Private Partnership (N-PPP) basis with the Union ministry, the State Government and industry as partners to address challenges faced by the Indian IT industry and growth of the domestic IT market, the IIIT-T — one of the pet projects of late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa — is yet to find any forward movement, parents of students lament.

At the time of its launch, the MHRD envisaged formation of a governing council with 13 to 15 members with power to approve budgets, purchases, capital and operational expenditure, faculty salaries, and recruitment norms. Constitution of a regular board is necessary for formation of Finance Committee and Building and Works Committee.

However, IIIT-T that now functions in the campus of the National Institute of Technology Tiruchi (NITT) remains under the purview of a transitional board of governors with the Director of Technical Education, Government of Tamil Nadu, as Member Secretary.

Industry partners including Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, TATA Consultancy Services, Ramco Systems Limited and Take Solutions, have a vital role in enabling IIIT-T to move to the permanent campus at Sethurapatti on a little over 56-acre land area, sources said.

The capital cost for construction of buildings and facilities for each IIIT is Rs. 128.00 crore that has to be contributed in the ratio of 50:35:15 by the Central Government, the State Government, and industry respectively. The MHRD had envisaged completion of the project over a nine-year duration before 2019-20. However, as things stand, meeting the MHRD's deadline is only a remote possibility.

When contacted, a senior official of the Directorate of Technical Education said the department had not determined yet if it would have any role to play in formation of the Governing Board.

For the students, the saving grace is IIIT-T’s subsequent preference for NIT-T as mentor institute over Anna University.

However, though the IIIT-T students have the advantage of pursuing their degrees in an ideal academic eco-system on the premises of NIT-T, there has been a decline in student strength. After getting into the fold of NIT-T, the B.Tech batches of 2015-16 in IT and CSE were merged, and the intake was reduced from 60 to 30. Only two B.Tech programmes are now being offered: CSE, and ECE. Besides, three M.Tech programmes — CSE, Software Engineering and Database Systems — had to be suspended from 2016-17.

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