Only 4 squatters left in Delhi’s VIP zone
Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat, who was Union water resources minister from 2012 to 2014, occupies 9, Teen Murti Lane. The UPA government allowed him to stay there till June 2015, while the NDA administration extended the occupancy by another year.
Sonowal resigned as Union sport minister in May, but continues to occupy his 12 Tughlaq Road bungalow.
“They requested for a bungalow in exchange for one of the six houses from the Uttarakhand and Assam quotas. We are considering the request,” the ministry official said.
The NDA government has adopted a strict policy to reject requests from politicians to extend their stay in official accommodations, in sharp contrast to its predecessor’s decisions. Sources said senior BJP leader and former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha had to vacate his house after the government showed him the rule book.
The UPA government, however, had allowed RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav and a host of politicians and bureaucrats to retain their bungalows in February 2014, just before the general elections.
courses and 6,000 in postgraduate and PhD seats.
The 23 IITs in the country will assess their infrastructure and faculty strength to decide how much more students they can admit without stressing resources.
Officials said a number of students will be allowed to study as day scholars, without hostel accommodation. Such students will have to find accommodation outside the campus, or travel from home if their institute is located in their hometown.
“This is something that is being worked out whether we will be able to arrange something for them or have tie-ups with paying guest accommodations, or students will be asked to take care of they stay,” an official said.
Javadekar promised a drive to fill up teacher vacancies so that an increase in the number of students doesn’t affect the quality of teaching.
Another decision taken by the council is to introduce a three-week induction course to allow students to adapt to their new environment, take up courses on languages and creative arts, and bond with classmates as well as faculty members. Classes will commence only after the induction course.
The IIT Council has also approved a pilot run of a national aptitude test, which will be voluntary in nature and will not have a bearing on engineering admissions.
To improve their stature, the council cleared a project in which seven IITs — Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Roorkee and Guwahati— will be assisted to help break into the top 100 universities in the global university ranking by 2018. At present, no IIT features on the list.