pune the maharashtra government continues to wait for the human resource development hrd ministrys nod to its proposal seeking an indian institute of information technology iiit status for two premier institutes in the state including the citybased international institute of information technology better known as the i2it the states proposal which was moved almost a year ago was in response to the union governments decision to establish 20 new iiits on a public private partnership ppp mode across the country during the 11th five year plan 200712 each of the iiits was envisaged as an autonomous centre of excellence specialising in specific areas of frontier technology on november 19 hrd minister of state d purandeswari stated in a written reply to a query in the rajya sabha the government of india has a proposal to set up 20 new iiits in ppp mode and the same has been approved by the finance ministrys expenditure finance committee efc the locations and other details of new iiits will depend upon the response of the state governments and industry partners speaking to toi in this context secretary to state department for higher and technical education mahesh pathak said on monday our proposal regarding the iiits was moved almost a year ago but the matter remains pending with the hrd ministryhe said we had identified i2it pune and another institute in aurangabad in our proposal which recommended these two institutes be converted into iiits the state even made a token provision in the budget in anticipation of the ministrys nod to the proposal the i2it established by industrial group finolex has a stateoftheart academic campus located in the rajiv gandhi it park at hinjewadi near here it was inaugurated in may 2003 by the then president apj abdul kalam the institute offers fulltime residential ms and ma programmes in advanced technology and is an approved centre of the university of pune uop for research leading to phd in engineering pathak confirmed that the state governments proposal identified the finolex group as the industry partner for the iiit in pune we expect the hrd ministry to convey its decision on our proposal in case of the ministry desiring any other plan we need an inprinciple nod so that we can scout for some other place or new industry partner he said according to eminent computer expert and i2it chief mentor vijay bhatkar an expert committee headed by former uop vicechancellor ashok kolaskar and comprising directors and officials of indian institutes of technology iits as well as existing iiits had recommended i2its name to the state government for the iiit statuswe have been following up the matter with the central government what we know as of now is that the policy to establish the 20 iiits has been cleared and the hrd ministry has been asked to get the required financial provision done in the budget bhatkar told toi the national association of software and service companies which is the trade body representing the indian it