Presentation of Kakodkar Committee

RECOMMENDATIONS TO TAKE IITs FORWARD

Kakodkar Committee set up by MHRD

Anil Kakodkar, Mohandas Pai, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Mohandas, Hari Bhartia, Ashok Thakur

Invited: M. Anandakrishnan, Timothy Gonsalves, Gautam Barua

Co-opted: K. Sudhakar and Ramesh Babu

April 7, 2023 Kakodkar Committee 1

Outline• Recommendations

• Enhanced Research focus• Autonomy• Faculty, Staff, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Scaling Engineering

Education

• Summary


RECOMMENDATIONSEnhanced Research Focus


Going forward, IITs


Some target numbers by 2020• 20 IITs (typically one in each state)

• Faculty Strength: 16000• established IITs may have 1200 faculty each

• Ratios: Faculty:student = 1:10; PG:UG = 1:1 or higher• IITs to strive to have one PhD graduate per year for each full time faculty

• Student Strength: 160000• 40000 PhDs + 40000 Masters and 80000 UG Students

• Admissions per year• 10000 PhDs (average 4 years to graduate)• 20000 Masters (2 years to graduate)• 20000 Undergraduates (4 years to graduate)

• Enhancing Industry’s Knowledge capabilities• About 10000 Executive M.Techs educated per year using live video-classes


Where will PhD Students Come from?

• Approximately a fourth each from

• Existing Stream: M.Tech / Masters graduates joining for PhD

• UG students in any Indian engineering institution selected at the end of their third year for direct PhD admissions• to complete their B.Tech and carry out PhD at IIT

• Teachers from various engineering colleges comes to IIT for three years for a PhD (Faculty Improvement program)

• Industry personnel pursuing PhDs (part-time)

• IITs require to aggressively pursue candidates to join PhD


Comprehensive Research Infrastructure• Significantly Enhanced Research funding for

• Large collaborative focused program• Multiple faculty from multiple disciplines and multiple institutions

• IITs to aim to become the World’s Best in a few areas: massively funded • areas selected on the basis of demonstrated high level capability

• Industry to set up their R&D Labs at Research Parks adjacent to IITs to enable industry-academia collaborations and build Research and Innovation eco-system

• Government Ministries to set up their R&D Labs at IITs• Each Ministry/ PSU reserves 2% of its budget for R&D• Towards industry acquiring technology leadership in the area


RECOMMENDATIONSAutonomy


IITs today have• Total Academic autonomy• Significant Administrative autonomy• Limited Financial autonomy as over 80% of its budget comes from

MHRD (limited by government financial rules)

• IITs can not become World-Class institutions without total autonomy

• In future, IITs to be totally self-reliant in terms of its operational (non-plan) budget

• funding from government only to students for scholarship• and legacy pension

• MHRD will continue to fund IITs for its Capital Expenses, Research and Core Infrastructure (Plan budget) • augmented infrastructure necessary to support projected scale-up• refurbishing of ageing infrastructure and to clear the current backlog• Enhanced research support for research at IIT by MHRD and other funding agencies


Funding its Operational Budget• IITs to recover its operational expenses through tuition fees

• Estimated at Rs 2 lakhs per year (up from Rs 0.5 lakhs today)• MHRD to fully provide fees for

• All research students (Masters and PhD): fees plus fellowship• Weaker section UG students• other UG students with parental income below a threshold (say < Rs 4.5 l / annum)• Hassle-free government / bank loan to be a part of admissions process• create incentives for B.Tech students to pursue research and teaching career

• Industrial and Consultancy programs and Royalties

• Enhanced R&D projects• all government ministries must provide a minimum of 20% overheads without

ceiling• Most US Universities have this over 50%

• Continuing Education Programs• Excecutive M.Tech.

• Alumni and Industrial Grants


Current Financial Estimates• Fees Rs2 lakhs per year per student

• Retirement Benefits (old pension scheme) costs around Rs250 Crore for all IITs• Plus scholarships

• Expansion Budget (one-time)• Rs20 lakhs per student• Rs5 lakhs per existing student in established IITs for regeneration• Oversight-related expansion costs: Rs15 lakhs instead of Rs10 lakhs per

student

• Capital Grants• Rs1.5 lakhs/student per year plan grant

• current amount Rs 70C for 6000 students• Rs10Crores / year per new IIT as seed endowment over next five years• Rs200Crores for each IIT for setting Research Park in line with IITMRP


Towards excellence through autonomy• Institute to be fully governed by its Board of Governors

• Including Financial planning and Expenditure rules, faculty remuneration, fees, number of faculty and staff

• But in accordance with Government’s overall policy directives in terms of affirmative action, technology directions

• Board to constitute of• One representative each from MHRD and state Government• Others from panels (panels approved by council) prepared by S&T academies and Industry

associations; alumni and faculty to be represented; one eminent citizen• Board to select chairperson and approved by the council• Board Nomination committee to select director and next set of board members

• Comprehensive Institution review duly monitored by the IIT Council every 5 years and made public: focus on quality and size

• Annual MOU between Government and each IIT with Council oversight and guidance

• Visitor to retain emergency powers


RECOMMENDATIONSOthers


Faculty• Attracting Best faculty to IITs is key

• Strong academic culture and transparency• Drive by Director and faculty to attract faculty• Start-up funds to attract faculty

• Faculty remuneration decided by BOG• Differentiated faculty remuneration based on performance based

assessment• Five-axis Faculty assessment: Teaching, Research, Technology

Development and Industrial Consultancy, Policy Research, Service• Examine tenure-system for faculty

• Enable and Encourage some mid-career faculty from established IITs to shift to newer IITs

• Special Scheme for overseas faculty to join IIT


Staff• All decisions including numbers, remuneration to be

decided by BOG

• Suggest outsourcing of all support activities

• Most scientific staff on project mode• Flexibility of salaries for these temporary staff

• Technical Staff: insource staff where possible• Use PhD students

• Administrative Staff: computerize as much as possible• Hire some mid-career staff, watch for a few years before regularisation


Innovation and Entrepreneurship• Nurture Industry–Academia relationship to make India a world leader

in knowledge economy• Significant give and take required on both sides

• will change teaching and research at IITs and will train IIT graduates to take India to leadership position

• Encourage R&D personnel to become adjunct faculty• Enable large number of industry persons to do PhD

• IITs need to have special focus on Innovation and entrepreneurship• Important to bring students, faculty and industry R&D personnel together• Research Park creates the right eco-system

• IITs need to learn that• Success in entrepreneurship comes only after multiple failures• Substantial benefits only if pursued over long periods

• Have to make special efforts to learn to evaluate faculty focusing on product development


Towards becoming Technology SuperpowerGraduating 100,000 high Quality Students / year

• Identify 50 centrally funded Science and engineering institutions (like NITs, IIITs, IISER, NISER) to be nurtured

• 5 bright young IIT faculty members and 3 industry persons for each such institute• Invite them to be members of BOG and senate of the institute• Task them to build relationship to enhance quality and to

• Enable Research collaboration between the institute and their IITs• These youngsters would be thereby trained to be future leaders

• Get these start graduating 80K high quality UGs over ten years• Along with IITs, central government funded institutions to have 100K high

quality UG seats• Hopefully state government /private institutions creates 200K quality seats

• Will create the Science and Engineering pool for India’s future


Way Forward

• Recommendations need to be accepted as a whole to realise the intended objectives• needs some changes in IIT Act

• Task an Empowered Implementation Committee to make this transition happen over three years


SUMMING UP


Major recommendations and views1. Enhancing PhD students: 40K, MS: 40K, faculty to 16K

• General unanimity amongst IIT directors, faculty, alumni, industry• Some skepticism about getting enough students

1a. Enhancing B.Tech students to 80K• Some opposition amongst IIT faculty; support from alumni, industry

• Not a significant increase for 20 IITs• Constraints of campus space at some places

2. Autonomy of Board, selection of Director / Chairman• All faculty / directors/ alumni / industry want autonomy• But some directors somewhat apprehensive of board functioning,

taking responsibility -- right now comfort of being MHRD baby• Will require very careful selection of transition board and

handholding by Implementation committee


3. Fee increase to Rs 2 lakhs per year• Significant apprehension amongst some faculty / directors

• Supported by alumni / industry• Implementation committee has to manage transition

• Weaker section students, rural and poor students (parental income of less than 4.5 lakhs) provided complete scholarships

• Hassle free government / bank loans for others• Would require working and some persuasion

• As capital cost is Rs 6 -8 l/yr, fees are still less than 25% of total cost• Government loans for fees being increased proposed

4. Independent of MHRD for operational budget• Some apprehension amongst some faculty and directors• Industry / alumni agree that it is the route to autonomy• Requires Implementation committee to spend time at each IIT



Finally

9. General Apprehensions• Will IITs really get autonomy after all this?

• Or will the command and control mindset in finance prevail?

10. Will all this really make IITs world’s top institutions?•Will our research become world class?•We will need to continuously work on quality•Require leadership emerging at each IITs•Have to create a nationalistic fervor -- raw material is there

• Implementation committee need to work on it


ADDITIONAL SLIDES


Financial Implications of Recommendations I• Capital Expenditure: 100% to be met by MHRD

• OSC expansion cost: Rs 10 lakhs Rs 15 lakhs per student• Future Student Expansion: Rs 20 lakhs / student• One time rejuvenation: Rs 5 lakh per existing student for estab. IITs• Rs 200 Crore per established IIT for Research Park• Yearly Capital grants: Rs 1.5 l / student (current Rs 70 Cr for 6000

students)


FY 10 FY 11 FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15

Capital cost Rs Cr 2026 2264 2713 3731 4491 5219

Rejun grants + RP+new IIT 979 979 979 979

No of students 41000 45116 50974 57084 65288 74313

Capital Cost/student (Rs l) 4.94 5.02 5.32 6.53 6.87 7.02

Financial Implications of Recommendations II


Presentation of Kakodkar Committee

Documents

parental income

financial

implementation

kakodkar committee

capital expenses

existing student

spend time

phd students