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IIT Kanpur, Delhi to hold own entrance exam; Bombay, Kharagpur likely to revolt too, say sources

 A day after Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)  Delhi rejected the new entrance exam format announced by Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal on May 28 and said it would hold its own entrance exam, sources have told NDTV that IIT Bombay and Kharagpur are also likely to follow suit.

IIT Bombay Senate will hold a crucial meeting on this on July 2. Faculty members in IIT Kharagpur are also likely to ask their Director to hold a Senate meeting soon to go with the decision of the other revolting IITs. IIT Karagpur Director, Professor Damodar Acharya, has so far toed the line of the IIT Council. His tenure ends on June 30.

The new entrance format has met with stiff opposition ever since it was announced by Mr Sibal, who says it's a "decision of IIT Council and not of the Ministry." But dissenting Senates accuse the Ministry of "shooting from the shoulder of the IIT Council."

The IIT Council is headed by the HRD Minister and consists of the Directors of the seven old IITs. The Directors also head the Senate bodies of their respective institutions. The Senates, as per the IT Act of 1961, are the highest decision making bodies on all academic matters of the IITs. The Council only holds an advisory role. Sources in the Ministry though point to ordinances which empower the IIT Council to take the decision.

The row over the new entrance format gained momentum after IIT Kanpur, earlier this month, decided to hold its own test. At a meeting yesterday, IIT Delhi Senate also followed in the footsteps of Kanpur and took what it calls a "historic' decision." "The IIT Delhi Senate has outrightly rejected the proposal of the IIT Council. We will hold our own entrance test and we will gather a consensus among other IIT Senates to reject the proposal of the IIT Council," said Professor Sanajeev Sanghi, a Senate member and the President of the IIT faculty forum.

Even as the Senates try and get a consensus on conducting their own entrance exams, they maintain they are open for a discussion and hope a compromise formula can be hashed out. The new row comes just days after the All India Faculty Federation met the Prime Minister who is said to have assured them that the autonomy of the IITs will be upheld. "But we have not got any proposal from the Ministry. We don't trust the Ministry. The way the minister has conducted himself. This is the reason why there was an over whelming majority in the IIT Delhi Senate who have said it should conduct own exam," said All India Faculty Federation Secretary AK Mittal.

With The IIT JEE less than a year away, students are a worried lot. "We don't know what the format is and it is anyway unfair to have a new format now. We have already been preparing for the old format," says an IIT aspirant.

Ahead of the Senate meetings of IITs, all eyes will be on the Joint Admission Board (JAB) meeting tomorrow. The JAB has been conducting the IIT entrance test for 50 years.