New Delhi, July 30: Banaras Hindu University’s engineering wing can retain the name of its parent varsity even after being cleaved into an independent IIT, the Centre has accepted, clearing a major roadblock in the execution of a long-promised upgrade.

The university, too, has withdrawn its demand that the vice-chancellor (VC) be permanently made chairman of the new IIT in a compromise that has revived efforts to elevate the status of the Institute of Technology-BHU.

The human resource development and the law ministries have agreed to name the upgraded institute IIT-BHU — unlike any other of India’s 15 IITs — instead of IIT Varanasi as they initially wanted, The Telegraph has learnt.

Two days after the law ministry approved IIT-BHU as the name of the new institute on July 14, the executive council of the university met and accepted a set of demands by the HRD ministry. Government officials confirmed there was still a slight divergence between the HRD ministry and the university over a key government demand. But with each conceding ground from their earlier positions, the university and the Centre have broken the deadlock, sources said.

“The compromise is significant because the plans for the upgrade of IT-BHU into an IIT were appearing bleaker with every passing day. Now it is a question of when, not whether,” an official said.

IT-BHU, which for years has admitted students through the IIT Joint Entrance Examination, was first promised the IIT status, along with six other institutes, during NDA rule. An expert panel subsequently proposed that IT-BHU be granted the IIT tag.

In 2008, the HRD ministry announced it would start eight new IITs and upgrade IT-BHU into an IIT under the current Eleventh Five-Year Plan. Earlier this year, the move to upgrade IT-BHU was temporarily shelved ahead of the polls.

At the IIT council meeting in January, concerns were raised about separating IT-BHU from its parent varsity. The concerns were later echoed by others at BHU.

In February, the university’s executive council passed a resolution agreeing to the upgrade of IT-BHU but placed a set of conditions the Centre has till now found unacceptable. The demands that the newly created institute should be called IIT-BHU and that the university’s VC be made chairman of the board of governors of the new IIT were considered the most controversial.

IITs, by definition, were required to have an independent existence, and a name tying the new institution to an existing one was unacceptable, ministry officials had argued. While they have now accepted IIT-BHU as the new name, the university council has agreed to withdraw a proposal that a new institute be built at its Mirzapur campus.

BHU has also agreed that its vice-chancellor need not be made de-facto chairman of the new IIT. But it is still demanding that the VC be made co-chairman, a request the Centre is unwilling to accept.