Govt likely to bring IITs, IIMs, NITs and IISERs under new higher education regulator

Institutes of National Importance (INIs), including IITs, IIMs, NITs and IISERs, are likely to be brought within the ambit of the proposed single higher education regulator, Higher Education Commission of India, The Indian Express has learned.

Currently central universities (CUs) and INIs are governed by their own Acts of Parliament and are not answerable to the University Grants Commission or the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

While the central universities are still dependent on UGC for release of their budgetary grants, the IITs, IIMs and NITs deal with the ministry directly on financial matters.

According to sources, the Education Ministry, while deliberating on different provisions and powers of the proposed HECI, also considered bringing INIs and BUs within its ambit.

The move, if implemented by the government, is likely to cause heartburn especially among the IIMs which have been very protective of their autonomy, especially since the passage of the IIM Act.

An IIM director who spoke on the condition of autonomy told sources that the possibility of bringing all technical education institutions within HECI’s control was broached during a presentation made by the then AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe in December 2021.

However, in the first few months of 2022, a few IIM directors collectively wrote a letter to the ministry opposing the idea.

The HECI is the most significant higher education reform envisaged by the new National Education Policy (NEP) released in July 2020.

The idea of a single regulator subsuming all higher education regulators, however, predates the NEP 2020. In fact, the NDA government had introduced the Higher Education Council of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) Bill’ in January, 2018.

But it was never finalised, and within two years, the NEP, 2020, was announced.