According to the education ministry, President Draupadi Murmu has approved the appointment of new directors in eight Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Out of which two have been reappointed for a second term. Directors of two IITs have been appointed to top positions in various IITs including Rajat Moona, director of IIT Bhilai, who has been appointed as the director of IIT Gandhinagar, while Pasumarthy Seshu, director of IIT Dharwad, has been appointed as the director of IIT Goa.
Sheshadri Shekhar and Shripad Karmalkar, both professors at IIT Madras, have been appointed as directors of IIT Palakkad and IIT Bhubaneswar respectively. The two IIT directors who have been reappointed for a second term are — K N Satyanarayana (IIT Tirupati) and Manoj Singh Gaur (IIT Jammu).
Venkayappa R Desai of the Civil Engineering Department of IIT Kharagpur has been appointed as the Director of IIT Dharwad. Rajiv Prakash from IIT BHU’s School of Material Science and Technology has been elected as the Director of IIT Bhilai.
The Ministry of Education had last year invited applications for six new IITs – Dharwad, Goa, Palakkad, Jammu, Bhilai and Tirupati. In the advertisement released on October 18, it has been said that the applicant should have a Ph.D. with first class or equivalent in the preceding degree, preferably in a branch of Engineering.
IIT Bhubaneswar were waiting for a whole-time director since April 2020, when the five-year term of the current director R V Rajkumar came to an end.