The IIT faculty federation, opposed to the proposed common entrance for admission in IITs and other centrally-funded technical institutes, met senior PMO officials and sought a roll back of the decision on Thursday. The federation is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rescind on Friday. “We are encouraged with the meeting and are hopeful of a positive outcome,” A K Mittal, secretary of All India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIITFF), said after meeting PM’s advisor T K A Nair.
Sources said that the meeting assumes significance in the wake of HRD minister Kapil Sibal virtually ruling out going back on the Centre’s new proposal.
AIIITFF had written to the PM on May 31 saying that “Each IIT is an individual and independent academic entity and should reserve its right to follow its own norms with regards to admissions and other academic matter”.
Sibal, who is currently on a visit to the US, has said that the government has no intent to impinge on the IITs’ autonomy.
The government had on May 28 announced that from 2013, aspiring candidates for IITs and other central institutes like NITs and IIITs will have to sit under a new format of common entrance test, which will also take the plus-two board results into consideration.
Sibal had claimed that it was approved without dissent at a Council consisting of the IITs, the IIITs and the NITs. Delhi IIT alumni association said that Sibal had “misrepresented facts” over IIT-Kanpur’s dissent over the Council’s decision of adopting the new test format.



Keywords: common entrance,admission in IITs , PMO officials,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,AIIITFF, T K A Nair,HRD minister ,Kapil Sibal, central institutes, NITs , IIITs,business news