IITS ARE LIKELY TO COMPRESS M.TECH INTO A ONEYR COURSE

Get an MTech degree in a year from an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

The IIT council, the top decision-making body of the country’s premier engineering colleges, has cleared a proposal for a year-long executive MTech coursedesignedforprofessionals short of time to do a full two-year term.

The decision was taken at a meeting on April 27 that was chaired by human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar.

Besides professionals, the course will ensure more IIT students opt for research work.

“The MTech programme is an essential step towards good research. We want more students to complete their masters. Students get jobs after graduation and this programme can cater to such students,” a source said.

The IITs offer a two-year MTech programme, which costs approximately ₹20,000 a year.

For the shortened and compressed MTech course, the IITs have proposed a fee equivalent of the “market rate” that will help increase revenues. The rate would be equal to the fee of private institutes which charge much more than the governmentfunded IITs.

The board of governors of each of the 23 IITs in the country will decide the fee structure.

Of the 72,000 students in the IITs, around 14,000 are doing MTech.

CONTINUED ON P 6

Indian stocks closed at fresh highs on Tuesday as better prospects for rains raised optimism on consumption growth. Fund managers said the longterm macro outlook was positive and an earnings disappointment was the main bump ahead.

The benchmark Sensex