New Delhi, Oct 15: Taking note of the importance of technology in determining the status of a country, government aims at increasing the number of Indian Institutes of Technology from seven to 12, Union Minister of Science and Technology Murli Manohar Joshi said today. "We want to upgrade the levels of the regional engineering colleges to that of IITs," Joshi said here at the 1st International Meet-2003 organised by alumni association of National Institute of Technology and IIT.
Government had decided to upgrade the RECs to National Institute of Technology and out of these, few would be further taken up to the level of IITs, he said adding "we want to have five more IITs by upgrading some RECs." The number of IITs had already risen from five to seven, he said.
He said a country's development is based on the strength of its technologically trained people, adding for less developed countries there are only three to four engineers per 1000 population while for the developed ones the number is as high as 80-100 per 1000.
Intake of engineering colleges in the country was only about one lakh few years ago, which had now gone up to 3.5 lakh, he said.
Joshi said country's scientists and technologists should focus on innovations rather than aping the west. In the era of intellectual property rights countries would not get the technology easily.
Bureau Report