New Delhi, Oct 16 (IANS): Students of the Indian Institutes of Information Technology(IIITs) will be allowed to join integrated M. Tech and MBA at other IIITs, subject to fulfillment of minimum criteria.

The twenty IIITs are partially supported by the government and are required to become self-sufficient in a short span of time.

The IIIT Council also approved lateral movement of students of one IIIT to another IIIT or any other foreign institute for short periods during summer or internship.

According to an official statement, similarly, the faculty can also move to another IIIT for a semester or half a semester in order to tide over the shortage of faculty. It was also decided to start joint degree (PhD) programme with other IIITs in line with the IITs.

The decision were taken at the fourth meeting of the IIIT Council here, with Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' in the chair.

At the meeting, the Chairman, was is the HRD Minister, was authorised to appoint a Director in case of vacancy for short periods, on temporary charge.

It was also decided to inculcate entrepreneurship among students. The Minister said that each institute must identify or specific domain of expertise for themselves based on which their national and international branding would be done.

The HRD Ministry will examine a proposal for enhancing the budgetary support to each IIIT by Rs 50 crore towards capital and Rs 10 crore toward revenue to enable them to meet the increase in cost of material and manpower over the decade.

In a major move to support weaker students who are admitted to IIITs, the IIIT Forum advised the IIITs to provide options to such students to opt for BSc degree in the respective disciplines, so that they get the basic degree and look for appropriate employment opportunities.