The eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) established in 2008 with a view to increase the number of the premier institutions of education are plagued by a host of problems five years after inception. Starting with a lack of permanent campuses, the major problems include a faculty crunch and an unimpressive placement record.
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It is a known fact that half the sanctioned faculty posts in these IITs are still vacant with the blame being placed on the remote locations, bad infrastructure and associated problems.
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The NITs are reportedly doing better than these IITs with NIT, Trichy having a placement record of 96% with a lowest package being around 4 lakhs as compared to the students from the new IITs with low packages of 3.5 lakhs also. With the exception of IIT-Gandhinagar and IIT-Bhubaneshwar, the other new IITs have not shown a good placement record.
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The students who have availed admissions in these IITs are also not exactly happy with the poor infrastructure, inadequate faculty etc. Many a times, the teaching is taken up by the Ph.D students or existing professors are forced to teach subjects they are not qualified in as per the complaints of the students. There are no proper classrooms, labs, library, sports facilities or even hostels complain the students
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Many of these new IITs spend a huge amount on the rents with no permanent structure, campus in sight. Some like IIT-Bhubaneshwar have the construction work going on while some have no clue. The IIT members through feel it is too early for criticism as there are teething problems that will get sorted out soon. The example given is that the old IITS also took more than 5 decades to get established and prove their worth. India has a quality human resource crunch at all levels. Hence it is not surprising to find the vacancies at the new IITs according to retired IIT-Delhi director V S Raju.
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There is a fear of the dilution of the IIT brand name in case the new ones fail to reach the standards set by the older IITs but these are dismissed by many. Pointing out that similar apprehensions did exist when IIT-BHU and IIT Roorkee were set up, it is hoped that the new IITs do get off the ground soon with new improved infrastructure, adequate and quality faculty as well as the needed facilities.