National Development Council Delibrations to Approve 11th Plan

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=34132
http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2007/dec07/r2007121915.pdf

Focus on education sector presents a good opportunity for Bihar to revisit its overall Human Resources Development Strategy.

Expectedly Bihar can hope to host a Central University of Excellence, an Upgraded Central University and also the jewel institutions like IIM, IIT, AIIMS and IIIT (one or may be two, one each for software and for hardware) as already announced in various forums by different central authorities, besides hitherto unannounced IISER as well.

Since overall burden of planning lies with the state, it would be expected that state will approach the center with a plan for taking the number of institutes to at least one engineering college and one medical college in each district of the state in the very first year of plan period. These engineering colleges could be planned with most common bachelor level engineering streams like Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, Electronics, Civil and Computers. Specialized institutes should be separate from these suggested institutions and should not be planned as part of them.

For example state would need specialized institutes focused on creating necessary skill sets for sectors promising the largest job creation like a "Center of Excellence in Financial Education churning out over 5000 resources with various kind and level of skill sets”. State should also strive to have a National Institute of Biotechnology and a National Institute of Nanotechnology and may be an Indian Statistical Institute pertinent to the needs of emerging professions. The list can be further extended to prepare a comprehensive wish list
with focus on having institutes befitting the states economic needs and developmental agenda viz Institute of Travel & Tourism Management, National Institute of Food Technology & Entrepreneurship Management, National Institute of Design, National Footwear Design Institute, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Indian Institute of Rural Management, National Institute of Hydrology............ besides a NIFT and a NIPER as already planned.

Possibility of all this happening is definitely bright as appears in the excerpt of the PM's speech.

“The outlay on education goes up from 7.68% of the Central GBS in the 10th Plan to over 19% in the 11th Plan. In fact, education is the most favoured sector and the three fold increase in its share and a five fold increase in the actual outlays demonstrate the criticality of this sector in ensuring sustained inclusive growth in the future.”

Detail contours of the same reads as follows.....

“Education is an area of special focus in the XI Plan. Already, we can see that faster growth is leading to skill shortages and increases in wages and salaries for people with the right type of skills. We need a greatly expanded supply of educated and skilled labour to support our ambitious growth targets. Education is also our best hope for achieving inclusiveness and for spreading development to backward regions and marginalized groups. Nothing will ensure an effective spread of opportunity to all sections of the population more than the availability of good quality education particularly in rural areas. The XI Plan attempts to bring about a massive transformation in this area through many new initiatives. While strengthening the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a new scheme for universalizing secondary education is being proposed. In addition, 6000 model schools in all Blocks, 30 new Central Universities, 370 new colleges in educationally backward districts, a Skill Development Mission to cater to 1 crore students per year and a huge expansion in the number of Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, Indian Institutes of Information Technology, Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research are proposed in the XI Plan. This is a decisive start to bridging the knowledge gap in our country. But all these ambitious investments will bear fruit only if the Central and State Governments work purposefully to see that results are in line with expectations and that the quality of these institutions does remain top-class.”

Onus seems to be on state as it appears that if state were to approach center with appropriate evidences demonstrating the historical marginalization as well as the proof of existing imbalances along with role and relevance of these institutions in helping states development plan, central government would oblige.