Parliament passes IIIT amendment bill, giving national importance tag to five new institutes

Parliament on Tuesday passed a bill to declare five newly established Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) as institutions of national importance.

The five new IIITs set up under the Public Private Partnership mode are in -- Surat, Bhopal, Bhagalpur, Agartala, and Raichur.

The Indian Institutes of Information Technology Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 has alreaby been passed by Lok Sabha in the previous session on March 20, 2020.

The bill was introduced in the upper house on Monday by Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.

The education minister said that there are 25 IIITs in the country out of which 5 are purely run by the central government and 15 operate under public private partnership (PPP) mode.

"We have brought the proposal before this House to bring five new operational institute which are located and have started operations in Surat (Gujarat), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Agartala (Tripura) and Raichur (Karnataka) to bring under this act," Nishank said.

He said bringing the five new institutes under IIITs Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 will make them institute of national importance and they will have legal right to issue diploma, degree, PhD etc.

These 5 IIITs along with 15 other IIITs, which are also built on public private partnership (PPP) mode will now be able to use the nomenclature of Bachelor of Technology (BTech) or Master of Technology (MTech) or PhD degree.

It will also enable the institutes to attract enough students required to develop a strong research base in the country in the field of information technology.

BJP MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa thanked the prime minister and the education minister for including the institute in Agartala in the bill.

BJD MP Dr Sasmit Patra supported the bill. "I support his bill on behalf of my pary Biju Janta Dal," Patra said.

The bill amends the Indian Institutes of Information Technology Act, 2014 and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public-Private Partnership) Act, 2017.

Currently, these institutes are registered as Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and do not have the power to grant degrees or diplomas.

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On being declared institutions of national importance, the five institutes will be granted the power to grant degrees.