As per the new guidelines by the HRD Ministry, public money is not to be used by any of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), National Institutes of Technology (NIT) and other centrally-funded institutes to build food courts and swimming pools in the campus.
Post a meeting of the IIT Council earlier this year, the Ministry has conveyed to all the existing IITs that plan to upgrade their facilities and all the new IITs that are to come up soon, to strictly adhere to the new building norms specifying that government funds cannot be used to create anything that is not absolutely and immediately necessary—such as swimming pools, shopping complexes, eateries/food courts, stadiums, convention halls with over 500-seating capacity, ring road in the entire campus and guest house with over 20 rooms.
Rs 5000 crore has been allocated by the Central Government for the construction of new IIT campuses at Dharwad, Palakkad, Tirupati, Bhilai, Goa and Jammu will.
All hostels, academic blocks and administrative buildings will have LAN and Wi-Fi facilities. The campuses have also been instructed to connect all buildings with fibreoptic cables and ensure internet facility of 1 Gbps speed.
Among other guidelines, it is required that when the institutes construct an academic or administrative building, they have to make ensure that there is 30 sq m space per student. The benchmark for common facilities and sports is 35 sq m per student.
Similarly, land has to be developed in modules of 50 acres so that quality is maintained and time limits and budgets are not exceeded. A project monitoring unit constituted by the Ministry will regularly visit all construction sites and offer advice, wherever necessary.
