Taking note of the importance of technology in determining the status of a country, the government aims to increase the number of Indian Institutes of Technology from seven to 12, Union Minister of Science and Technology Murli Manohar Joshi said on Wednesday.

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"We want to upgrade the levels of the regional engineering colleges to that of IITs," Joshi said at the 1st International Meet-2003 organised by the Alumni Association of National Institute of Technology and IIT.

The government has decided to upgrade the RECs to the level of National Institute of Technology and of these, few would be further upgraded to the level of IITs, he said, adding, "We want to have five more IITs by upgrading some RECs." The number of IITs had already risen from five to seven, he said.

The seven IITs are at Kharagpur, Kanpur, Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Guwahati and Roorkee.

Joshi said a country's development is based on the strength of its technologically trained population, adding for less developed countries there are only three to four engineers per 1000 people while for the developed ones the number is as high as 80-100.

Intake of engineering colleges in the country was only about 100,000 few years ago, which had now gone up to 350,000, he said.

Joshi said India's scientists and technologists should focus on innovations rather than aping the west. In the era of Intellectual Property Rights countries would not get the technology easily.