Within a week of the Prime Minister’s Independence Day announcement of eight new IITs, India today asked Japan for helping in building these institutions, sources told The Indian Express.

The government’s request comes in the wake of a massive infrastructure upgradation exercise in the higher-education sector being planned by the government, which includes seven new IIMs and 30 new Central universities.

India is not just looking for “financial assistance” but also “technical expertise” in building state-of-the-art infrastructure for these new institutions. The government is also interested in getting world-class Japanese faculty members to join these institutions and impart training in areas of their specialization, especially mechanical, electronic and civil engineering disciplines, where Japanese expertise is considered one of the best in the world.

The formal request came from Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Arjun Singh as he met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this evening. They were joined by Presidents and Vice-Presidents of 12 major universities in Japan and Vice-Chancellors of major Indian Universities, Directors of IITs and IIMs.

The existing IITs too were built in the 1960s with help from several foreign nations, including US, Russia and Germany.

The Japanese PM, sources said, emphasized the need for “people-to-people contact and increased relations between the institutions of higher learning in the two countries”. The meeting, it is learnt, also agreed to strengthen the relationship between universities, identify common research interests and increase faculty and student movement between the countries.