Proposed Changes in IIT Fees structure.

The report of the Committee on funding of IITs and the recommendations of SCIC for revision of annual fee in IITs to Rs.3 lakhs per year from the current Rs.90000 has been examined. The rationale for the SCIC recommendation arises from the fact that the cost of maintenance of the IITs is to be met largely from the student fee. On an average, the Government is spending about Rs 6 lakh per year on each student in the IITs.

Keeping in view the interests of the students, proposed hike is denied. Instead, it has been proposed that the increase is capped at Rs.2 lakh per annum. This increase in fee is subject to the following safeguards for protecting the interests of the socially and economically backward students:

A) The SC/ST/Differently abled students shall get complete fee waiver.

B) The most economically backward students (whose family income is less than Rs.1 lakh per annum) shall get full remission of the fee.

C) The other economically backward students (whose family income is between Rs.1 lakh to Rs.5 lakh per annum) shall get remission of 2/3rd of the fee.

D) All students shall have access to interest free loan under the ‘Vidya Lakshmi Scheme’ for the total portion of the tuition fee payable.

Further, all IITs are asked to use the increased student fee for infrastructure development with the assistance of funds from the Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA) so that the increased fee directly translates into better infrastructure for the students. As per orders issued, the matter will be placed in next meeting of the IIT Council for ratification.

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Changes in JEE Examination

After examining the report of Ashok Misra Committee and considering the public feedback, Ministry of Human Resource Development has notified the following changes in the JEE pattern for 2017 :

1. The performance of the students in the 12th Class Examination shall be a crucial parameter for determining the eligibility of the student for the JEE examination.

2. For the candidates to qualify in the JEE Examination, they shall have secured at least 75% marks or be in the top 20 percentile in the 12th Class Examination conducted by respective Boards. For SC/ST students this condition shall be relaxed to 65% marks.

3. The present system of giving 40% weightage for the 12th Class marks in calculating the ranks in the JEE Main shall be dispensed with.

4. All other JEE Examination systems shall remain unchanged.

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Union HRD Minister Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani Launches ISBN Portal

ISBN, Now a Click Away!

The Union Minster of Human Resource Development Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani launched a portal for registration and allotment of International Standard Book Number (ISBN) at a function held in New Delhi today.

The Union Minister said that the ISBN portal has been created in a short period of time, to facilitate publishers as well as the authors to register for ISBN online. This interactive automated system would provide fast and efficient services in a stipulated time frame to the Publishers and Authors as well.

She added that after the feedback from the publishers, a mobile app in the regional languages would also be launched in order to reach out to more and more publishers and authors across the country. She hoped that the publishers and authors from small towns would also be benefited from this initiative. To address the problem of free download of works of authors from the internet, she assured the book writing fraternity that the issue will be discussed with the concerned ministries including DeitY which will be shared with the states.

Prof. Narendra Kohli, eminent author was the Guest of Honor on the occasion. Speaking about the ISBN he said that in present times, ISBN has become an important part of publishing sector. He further said that this online system is a good initiative towards providing enhanced accessibility to the publishers and authors.

Shri Amish Tripathi, well-known author was the Chief Guest on the occasion. He said that, “ISBN gives an identity to a book. If you do not have it, the bookshops will not sell it.” He observed that ISBN is free in India unlike other countries like US and UK where publishers need to pay huge money for its registration. He further added that ISBN was manual till now and since it is online from today, it will help publishers from different parts of the country to get registration done easily and will save their time also.

Earlier, Smt. Aparna Sharma, Joint Secretary (BP & CR) welcomed the guests and informed that ISBN Portal is a part of Government’s e-governance initiative for streamlining the process of registration and make it user friendly.

Dr Rita Chowdhury, Director, NBT, India proposed the vote of thanks. She hoped that through this user friendly system, the publishers and authors would find it easy to register for ISBN.

BACKGROUND

Raja Rammohun Roy National Agency for ISBN, (Book Promotion and Copyright Division), under Department of Higher Education had organized the event for launch of ISBN portal.

ISBN is a unique number used to identify monographic publications. Displayed in barcode format, ISBN is a 13 character identification allotted by International ISBN Agency based in UK through the National ISBN Agency. It provides access to bibliographic data bases used by the book industry and libraries to provide information.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy National Agency for ISBN is responsible for ISBN registration in the country and is affiliated to UK based International Agency. The ISBN Nos. are allotted free of cost.

Over a period of time with the growth of the publishing industry and awareness about ISBN, the request for ISBN has increased exponentially. Efforts have been made from time to time to streamline the operations of the agency which caters to the requirement of the applicants of the entire country. In this direction an attempt is being made by designing the ISBN online portal http://isbn.gov.in to further streamline the operations.

The ISBN portal seeks to completely automate the process of seeking application, their examination and allotment of ISBNs. The developed software has several modules – users’ registration, online application submission, ISBN generation which includes ISBN generation request from the National Agency to the International Agency at UK.

The automation process also seeks to maintain inventory as well as process the data that will be provided by the users. There will be doing away with receipt of hard copy of any document unless considered appropriate for establishing the identity of the applicant and for confirming the book publishing activity.

Taking forward the Government’s ambitious Digital India campaign, the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s endeavor will ensure: ease of registration, enhanced accessibility, wider transparency, trust and credibility and greater efficiency for the book writing fraternity in the country.