The Indian Institute of Information Technology Public Private Partnership (IIIT-PPP) Bill, 2017, introduced by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar in the Lok Sabha on April 10, was passed by Parliament to become an Act on August 9, 2017 after it received the presidential assent.
The Act allows the establishment of 15 IIITs on a PPP model to grant degrees and get statutory status. It also confers the status of institute of national importance to IIITs similar to that of Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and National Institutes of Technology (NIT).
The various sources of funds include government and other sources like grants, fees and donations. For long term sustainability, a corpus fund of the net income of the institute and donations will also be maintained.
The Act defines PPP as a partnership under a scheme of the Centre for establishment of institutes through collaboration between the centre, the state government and industry partners such as individuals, trusts, companies or societies.
As for the establishment of an institute, it will be the responsibility of the state government to identify at least one industry partner for collaboration to establish an institute and submit a proposal to the Centre, which may or may not be accepted by the Centre. Upon acceptance, an MoU will take place between the Centre, concerned state government and industry partners to establish the proposed institute.
The Act has provisions related to board of governors, senate and coordination forum of the institute. Board of governors will be the principal policy-making and executive body of the institute, while the senate will be the main academic body of each institute. The role of the coordination forum will be to deliberate on matters of common interest of all the institutes, and to advise the Centre regarding inclusion or exclusion of an institution from the schedule of the Act.