While VIT is all set to start their college in Mauritius, IIT Delhi has shelved its plans.
After a prolonged period of upheaval that led to the departure of its previous director, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has officially announced the shelving of its plan to establish an IIT-like institution in Mauritius.
The International Institution of Technology Research Academy (IIT-RA), commonly known as IIT Mauritius, has been placed on hold. Kshitij Gupta, officiating director of IIT-Delhi, stated, “Nothing is happening now.”
IIT-Delhi has also withdrawn all its resources from the institutions in Mauritius. S.M. Ishtiaque, who was designated as the executive director of IIT-RA, has returned to the Delhi campus, and IIT-Delhi is no longer admitting students to those institutions.
IIT-Delhi, which broke into the top 200 QS global universities ranking this year along with the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, had been promoting the project since 2012 as a vehicle to elevate its global standing. However, the endeavor encountered obstacles in 2014 when the change of government led to resistance from the human resource development ministry.
Former IIT-Delhi director R.K. Shevgaonkar had expressed in May 2012 that the IITs aspired to expand their presence overseas, foreseeing a substantial impact on their brand image.
Shevgaonkar resigned in December 2014 in the wake of disagreements with the human resource development ministry over the project.
In 2010, then HRD minister Kapil Sibal and Mauritius’s minister of tertiary education, science, research and technology, Rajesh Jeetah, had shown interest in establishing an institute akin to the IIT in Mauritius.
While Gupta indicated that the situation has reached a “standstill,” he did not explicitly attribute the shelving of IIT-RA to the HRD ministry. “There is a change in the government in Mauritius and we did not get the kind of cooperation we were looking for. Maybe they are not ready yet,” Gupta stated.
He further added that it would be premature to declare IIT-RA as defunct and expects a clearer picture in the coming months.
According to a government official, the HRD ministry’s involvement was limited to informing IIT-Delhi that it would not be able to confer degrees to IIT-RA students in line with the IIT Act.
IIT-RA was envisioned to enroll post-graduate and research students, with about 40 IIT-Delhi faculty members slated to participate. Degrees were intended to be conferred by IIT-Delhi, with a focus on attracting foreign researchers and students, primarily from Africa and Asia.