As many as eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) would be set up in the country during the current academic session to impart high quality technical education.

The new IITs would come up in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Indore in Madhya Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs 6,080 crore (Rs 60.80 billion), Finance Minister P Chidambaram said after a meeting of the Union Cabinet.

With the creation of new IITs, high quality technical education will become accessible to bright students as hardly 2 per cent of about 300,000 students, who appear in the Joint Entrance Examination could get admissions in them, he said.

The Cabinet also approved creation of 30 faculty posts per year in the first three years of establishment of each of the new IITs, besides approving the posts of a director and Registrar.

A decision was also taken to raise the grade of all existing IIT Directors to Rs 26,000 (fixed) from Rs 25,000 now.

The IITs of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat would commence their classes for about 120 students each for B.Tech programmes through temporary campuses and would be mentored by IIT-Madras, IIT-Guwahati and IIT-Bombay, respectively.

The three IITs of Rajasthan, Punjab and Orissa will start their classes in the campuses of their mentor IITs at Kanpur, Delhi and Kharagpur respectively, while the IITs at Indore and Himachal Pradesh will begin their sessions from the academic session 2009-10.