Javadekar for more autonomy to premier institutes
Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar today stressed on the importance of research and innovation and said the Centre wants to give more autonomy to premier institutes of higher learning where the government''s role will be that of a facilitator, not controller.

Stressing on more autonomy to premier institutions of higher learning, based on their performance, the Union HRD minister said, "We want to give more autonomy to all institutes of higher learning, which are Centres of Excellence and the government''s role will be that of facilitator." "We don''t want to control institutes, we want to promote them to choose their own path to become real research and innovation centres," he said at a press conference in Mohali.

"Those institutes which are doing a good job, will get more autonomy and those which are not doing a good job or about whom we receive negative feedback, will have be more regulations," Javadekar said.

He chaired the review meeting at IISER, here with the Directors of five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research in Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

The Union Minister said the Prime Minister''s scholarship for research is being envisaged for IISERs on the same lines as for the IITs and IIMs.

"We have also decided to ensure a joint effort of all IISERs, IITs and IIMs so that the real strength of our institutes gets reflected in the international ranking," he said.

Although many Indian institutes have more quality, it doesn''t get reflected in the international ranking because the feedback mechanism and the perception issues were not addressed earlier. But we have decided to do it jointly with all these institutes of higher learning, Javadekar said.

Asserting that the Narendra Modi government wants to give more stress on research and innovation, which are key to its ''Make in India'' scheme, he said, as sustainable progress is achieved only by those nations which innovate.

"Sustainable progress happens in those countries which innovate and India wants to be an innovative nation. We have talent, we have ability, we have good institutes, we have good infrastructure, we want to strengthen it further give more impetus to this," the Union Minister said.