CUSAT may lose IIEST status

Kochi: CUSAT may lose IIEST status if urgent steps are not initiated to exert pressure on the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to get the Union Cabinet’ clearance for the proposal.

According to officials in the varsity, to effect the IIEST status, the MHRD has to place its report before the Expenditure Finance Committee and get its clearance and then the HRD Minister should place it before the Cabinet and get an Ordinance promulgated.

The MHRD has been sitting on the proposal for the past seven months.

“Since Parliament elections are round the corner, moving an ordinance would be the practical way of getting the IIEST dream materialize rather than pushing a Bill.

If it’s not passed in the last session of the current Lok Sabha, the Bill will lapse.

Nobody knows what the next government at the Centre will decide,” said Dr A.Ramachandran, former Registrar of CUSAT.

What is required is the political pressure from Union Ministers from the state and the State Cabinet.

The Planning Commission has granted Rs 400 cr for the IIEST in the 12th Five-Year Plan.

Dr Ramachandran discounted fears that IIEST would be an institution where only teachers were produced, instead of focusing on research in science and technology.

“The report of the Ananthakrishnan Committee appointed by the MHRD in this regard is clear about it.

It talks about establishing a new breed of institutions amalgamating the advantages of IITs and the Indian Institute of Science and other premier technology institutions with other disciplines,” he said.