New Delhi, Dec. 13: A panel of experts may soon vet the human resource development ministry’s proposals on science and technology education as proposed by the Prime Minister’s top scientific adviser, clipping the ministry’s wings.

Manmohan Singh and HRD minister Kapil Sibal have agreed to set up the science and technology advisory board to streamline the ministry’s proposals, government officials have said.

The proposal was mooted by C.N.R. Rao, the chairman of Singh’s scientific advisory council, and is aimed at preventing a repeat of decisions like setting up eight new IITs in one go.

Rao recently met Sibal and the two discussed the proposal.

The HRD minister asked Rao to suggest names for the board that the veteran scientist has submitted.

“This is crucial because, at the moment, decisions on science and technology education are taken without any technical knowledge,” Rao said from Bangalore.

The panel, Rao said, should consist of about six eminent scientists and engineers with unchallenged credentials — both academic and administrative.

It will advise the HRD minister and the ministry on science and technology education, and vet government proposals on the basis of the expertise of its members, according to Rao’s plan.

Rao had first proposed the panel during the later years of the first UPA government and the Prime Minister had approved the plan.

“But (then HRD minister) Arjun Singh, who could have implemented the proposal, did not, for some reason,” Rao said.

He cited two instances of what he argued were flawed decisions on science and technology education, related to the IITs and the National Institutes of Technology, which could have been prevented had the committee existed.

Had the committee existed in 2007, the new IITs first proposed in 2008 could have been set up differently, he argued.

The move to set up the IITs — which are all offering limited courses from temporary campuses — together has publicly received support from across the UPA government.

But advisers like Rao consistently opposed the move and some sections of the government now share their apprehension.

The UPA in the XIth five-year plan had originally proposed starting three new IITs first.

But in early 2008, just a year before the Lok Sabha elections, Arjun Singh announced eight IITs would be set up.

Arjun’s aides repeatedly said the decision to start eight instead of three IITs was taken with the Prime Minister’s approval, but a source close to Singh argued that he was effectively armtwisted.

At a meeting of the IIT Council — the highest decision-making body of the IITs — in February 2009, Rao had opposed the “rush” to start the IITs together. He subsequently resigned from the council in protest.

Rao also criticised the earlier NDA government’s decision to convert at one go several regional engineering colleges into NITs without a law at the time to legitimise their degrees.

The NITs functioned as deemed universities till 2007 when a law was enacted recognising them as institutes of national importance.