Minister denies! Modi's ‘IIT, IIM every year’ claim busted

NT Correspondent

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire again for factual inaccuracies in his speeches, this time with reference to the setting up of new Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs).

During his official visit to the United States, Modi in his June 23 speech said that “a new IIT and IIM is coming up in India every year”.

The claim was dubious even to casual observers. Moreover, when Rajya Sabha MP from Congress Kumar Ketkar posed a question in the Upper House as to how many IITs and IIMs had come up in the last five years, Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar in his official reply stated that none had been set up in that period.

“At present, there are 23 IITs and 20 IIMs functioning in the country. No new IIT or IIM has been opened in the last five years,” Sarkar replied.

As a part of the reply, the minister also clarified that 242 universities had come up in the country in the last five years.