A partnership has been entered into by the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), an autonomous scientific society under the administrative control of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and the Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education of the Maharashtra government to set up centres of excellence or CoEs.
As per the MoU, these centres in artificial intelligence(Al), robotics, Internet of Things (IOT), Industry 4.0, 3D printing and allied technologies will provide capacity training and R&D facilities at government polytechnics and government engineering colleges across Maharashtra. They will pitch for funds from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and other government organisations through the joint project proposal.
The training and learning activities for the faculty and students will be executed by NIELIT in collaboration with industries. In addition to the maintenance of these CoEs, this partnership will look into development of course content, and also offer placement assistance to the students.
There are 40 state government polytechnics in the state, with the Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education having already set up CoEs in loT at six of them and CoEs in robotics and automation in three of them. The setting of the remaining CoEs will require additional funds, which will now happen in accordance with the MoU.
Railways, Information & Broadcasting, Electronics & Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Higher & Technical Education Minister Chandrakant (Dada) Patil, were present for the signing of the MoU. Vinod Mohitkar, director, technical education, Pramod Naik, director, Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education, Madan Mohan Tripathi, DG, NIELIT, Abhishek Singh, additional secretary, MeitY were amongst the others present.
