| The HRD Ministry has favoured a joint review of IIT degrees both by the UGC and the premier technical institute following a fresh controversy over the commission's directive to align IIT courses along the lines of those recognised by it. The Ministry has suggested both to hammer out an "appropriate solution" as University Grants Commission maintains that some of the IIT programmes are not in conformity with those recognised by it, officials said.
The UGC directive to IIT-Kharagpur director has come as a "surprise" to the IITs which insist that they are not governed by the UGC Act but the Act of Parliament and IIT Council and therefore are empowered to "institute courses of study" without the need to seek approval of the Commission. The direction from the UGC, the apex regulatory body governing higher education in the country, was sent to director of IIT Kharagpur, months after it asked Delhi University to scrap its four-year-undergraduate programme and sent instructions to some other institutes including Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore to align their courses. The Commission had on July 5 issued a gazette notification after the Delhi University controversy listing out all the recognised degrees. With IITs asking for a clarification about the powers and the autonomy enjoyed by it to institute own degrees, the Ministry has opined that the provisions of the UGC Act 1956 and IIT Act 1961 should be "construed" in a harmonious manner rather than exclusion of the other. It has also underlined the fact that the expression 'degrees' is not defined in the IIT Act, 1961.
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