Intake cut by half in RGUKT IIITs

The annual intake of students in each of the three IIITs (International Institutes of Information Technology) has been reduced from 2,000 to 1,000.
The IIITs were established by the Rajasekhara Reddy government, one each in the three regions of the State, to offer quality IT education to rural youths and make them employable through a six-year integrated course.
The decision to cut the intake by half was taken by the Cabinet, at a meeting here on Thursday, on the recommendation of a Cabinet sub-committee constituted by Chief Minister K. Rosaiah recently. The four-member committee concluded that the existing infrastructure in these institutes—particularly the hostel accommodation and faculty—was grossly inadequate to achieve the original goal of bringing them on a par with the IITs.
Sources said the Ministers were conscious of the criticism this decision would draw on the score that the present government was rolling back all the schemes. But, it was pointed out that once these institutes reached their sixth year, they would together have 36,000 students and it would be a Herculean task to provide them even the basic facilities. The IIITs are presently functioning at Basar (Adilabad district), Idupalapaya Valley (Kadapa) and Nuzvid (Krishna) under the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies. A spokesman, however, clarified to reporters later that for now, the Cabinet's decision applied for the 2010-2011 academic year. It would be reviewed once the infrastructure was improved.
Enquiries with Higher Education Department revealed that the IIITs, which were originally authorised to admit 6,000 students annually—that is each 2,000, began admissions two years ago and they have, at present, a total of 12,000 students on rolls. Sources said the Government was also concerned over identifying funds for the IIITs which was of the order of Rs. 600 crore annually.