New Delhi, June 6: A new Indian Institute of Technology in Himachal Pradesh may start offering courses from this academic session, adding to the six virgin IITs slated to take off this year.

The human resource development ministry also plans to upgrade Banaras Hindu University’s technology institute (BHU-IT) to the level of an IIT to take the count of new institutes starting this year to eight.

But Madhya Pradesh, also in line, is likely to have to wait for another year with its “mentor”, IIT Mumbai, informing the Centre that it is unable to hand-hold two new institutes this year. Mumbai is already mentoring an IIT in Gujarat, slated to kick off this session.

The ministry had announced plans to start eight IITs by 2012 but is now pushing for their launch this year, the last before the general elections.

Notifications for the Himachal institute and the upgrade of BHU-IT have not been issued so far. But top ministry officials said minister Arjun Singh had “in principle” approved their launch this year, if the states were ready to provide necessary infrastructure.

Talks are on with the Himachal government to finalise temporary facilities for the IIT while a permanent campus is built. But failure to select the site before July 20, when the IIT academic session starts, may doom this year’s launch plan, ministry officials said.

Additional students for the Himachal IIT — a number is still to be finalised — will be selected on the basis of the Joint Entrance Examination. Results of the JEE have already been released. BHU-IT already admits students on the basis of these scores.

New IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Orissa and Punjab are also to start this session. The IITs in Chennai, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Delhi are the mentors for the new institutes.

“Like his mythical counterpart (in Mahabharat), the minister, too, never loses sight of his target. And elections are due next year,” a senior official joked when asked to explain the rush to open IITs.

Senior ministry officials examined a temporary location in Himachal’s Hamirpur last week, sources said.

According to an internal ministry note, the decision not to announce the Himachal plan with the others was taken because of lack of interest from the state.

On May 27, joint secretary N.K. Sinha wrote to the state asking how prepared it was for the institute, sources said. Chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal then wrote to Arjun saying the state was “prepared”.

IIT Roorkee will mentor’ the Himachal institute.