Super 30 founder and mathematician Anand Kumar on Monday expressed concern over the Centre's idea of outsourcing the IIT entrance test.

Having earned name globally for coaching weaker section students free of cost to clear the gruelling IIT entrance test, the teacher-cum-philanthropist from Patna said the move could dilute the quality of the test, which, in turn, would adversely hit the quality of students' intake in these prestigious institutions.

Anand was reacting to a news item published in The Telegraph on Monday in which Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar had been quoted as saying that the entrance test the IITs conduct may be transferred to the testing agency proposed in the Union budget.

While presenting the budget on February 1, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had spoken about the proposal, which talked of setting up a national testing agency for conducting all kinds of entrance examinations.

"All the examinations the IITs conduct may also go to the testing agency," Javadekar had said on Sunday.

Reacting to Javadekar's comment, Anand said: "IIT professors are experienced people and they know very well that what should be tested for screening the students who deserve to study in these institutions. Tampering with the system by outsourcing the entrance process to a testing agency would dilute the quality of the test."

Anand is not alone to express concern on this issue, as IIT-Delhi director Ramgopal Rao and IIT-Kanpur director Indranil Manna too had said similar things as mentioned in The Telegraph report on Monday.

They had said that IITs be allowed to continue to conduct entrance examinations since the tests are conducted well and have gained a reputation over the years.

Different IITs are now given responsibility of conducting the IIT entrance examination on rotation basis for admission to BTech courses.

Anand, supporting the stand these directors took, said if at all the government wanted to free institutions from the load of conducting entrance examinations, it should create a pool of experts by selecting serving and retired IIT teachers in addition to subject experts from different institutions of repute and use their genius to frame question papers and conducting the test.

"Any compromise on the quality front would have adverse impact on the prestige attached with IITs," said the Super 30 founder, who since 2002 has coached 420 students from weaker sections out of which 366 went to join different IITs of the country.