Responding sharply to HRD Minister Smriti Irani’s call for a fresh process to interview 36 candidates in a single day for appointment of directors of the IITs at Patna, Ropar and Bhubaneshwar, nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar said that “It is too casual a process for the appointment of directors of IITs”. “What was done before was okay. Looking at all 36 candidates in one day is not right. There is a fundamental difficulty with the process. How do you ensure that you make the correct selection?” he said.”IITs are far too important to the country to have such a casual process for the appointment of its directors. It has to be dealt with seriously. How can one be party to such a process?” It may be mentioned that Kakodkar had resigned as chairman of both the IIT-Bombay Board of Governors (BoG) and the standing committee of the IIT Council on March 12. Although, he later decided to continue.
