Chennai: In his capacity of ‘Visitor’ (head) of 16 IITs, President Pranab Mukherjee has called for a day-long meeting with the chairmen and directors of all the institutes on August 22 in New Delhi.
The meeting may not be just a formality now as the President will be discussing various issues with an eye on improving the quality of IITs, besides reviewing their functioning.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle on Wednesday, former Anna University vice-chancellor and chairman (board of governors), IIT Kanpur Prof. M. Anandakrishnan said that the President had started the series of reviews of centrally funded institutes to understand their functioning.
“The President wants to know what we are doing, the goal we have set for the institute, how government has to support us and how the institutes are handicapped in various fronts,” he said.
Pointing out that the President had given 15 minutes time to each director to present the overall picture about their institute, the IIT-Kanpur chairman said that the President would also discuss several other issues that he might think are pertinent in today’s context.
IIT Madras director Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi added that he would outline the steps the institute has taken to rise in world rankings, besides bringing up other initiatives taken recently in various matters.
Once the President completes review of IITs he would continue to assess the performance of 30 National Institutes of Technology, followed by 40 Central Universities.
The President heads all the centrally funded institutions, including IIT, NIT and central universities as Visitor (head).
