HRD Targets for next 100 days

Setting any target is laudable, as it displays a will to be active and achievement oriented. However, while setting targets, one needs to examine the outcome of such efforts in the recent past. Many such schemes suffer still birth. For example, there was a plan to set up a satellite campus of IIT, Chennai at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The IIT was keen, but the State got enmeshed in counter proposals about the location. Many development projects suffer embarrassing delays due to land acquisition, never ending list of clearances at the State and Central levels. If nothing else, the finances are not released in time and budgetary allocations lapse.

This writer has apprehensions about setting up 10 new NITs in unreserved states in the next 100 days. In this context, the department should review the status of the new IITs being set up in Rajasthan, etc. Why are they taking so long to take birth in their intended states? Have the concerned states decided on their location? What is the status of acquisition of land for them? What are the road blocks? Are the functionaries accountable to achieve the targets in place? What is the plan to prevent similar fate for the proposed NITs?

There are worries about the delivery of proposed financial assistance. Popular belief is that less than RS. 15 out of the released Rs. 100 reach the target. What does HRD intend to do improve this scandalous performance?

Will HRD publish within 120 days the status of achieving the targets in 100 days? Twenty days should be enough to review the progress over 100 days!