Even as he said that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is a distinguished minister who is entitled to his views,Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal pointed out that 25 per cent of the IIT faculty are alumni of the institutes and therefore,must be world class. Twenty-five per cent of the IIT faculty are students of IITs who have done B Tech. Surely the 25 per cent students who are world class students must be world class faculty," Sibal said here today. "The distinguished minister is entitled to his opinion. The Government of India is entitled to give its own views, he added. He said if the IITs have not gained the critical mass to change the global scientific discourse,it is because of the ecosystem and not because of the faculty. He said the IITs rank among the top 50 in the global index,with IIT-Bombay placed at No 21,IIT-Delhi at 24,IIT-Kanpur at 37 and IIT-Madras at 39. In terms of publication too,he said,the rate was "15 to 17 per cent in case of IITs" as against the global rate of 4 per cent. If the US spends $250 billion dollars on research,India spends $8 billion dollars. You cannot create that critical mass. That's not because of faculty, he said. Sibal said the discourses on these premier institutes should be based on evidence and not on perceptions. He also cited research work by some IIT faculty members and called them path-breaking stuff. He said the HRD Ministry is already embarking on the reforms process,including initiation of enormous changes in the administrative structure within the IIT system which will allow the faculty to do research. In seven to 10 years our R&D institutions would have gained that global eminence for which they could not have been faulted in the past, he said.
