A team of 24 senior faculty members will oversee the daily functioning of the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) under a new decentralised administrative set-up that aims at faster and more effective implementation of policies.

The Shibpur institute will now have seven deans and five associate deans, all senior teachers, to manage its daily administrative matters. Before being upgraded to an IIEST, it had three deans who were responsible for managing only the internal academic affairs of the three faculties - science, humanities, and engineering and technology.

The IIEST, the first of its kind in the country, aims to evolve a unique system to impart engineering and technology education, director Ajoy Kumar Ray said.

The organisational restructuring has been done in a way so the institute is able to achieve its target successfully, he said.

"The institute has an ambitious plan to develop a model curriculum for students. Revitalising the governance and administration is needed to implement the new curriculum successfully," Ray said. "Hence, we have decided to devolve more administrative authority and autonomy to the faculty members. The revamp would reduce administrative pressure on the director as well."

Instead of spending most of the time on managing day-to-day minor internal administrative work, the director will now focus more on developing external linkages, promoting collaborations with national and international institutes for conducting high standard research, brand building and fund raising activities.

The seven new deans will be in charge of faculty affairs, academic affairs, administrative affairs, research and development, students' affairs, building and infrastructure development and alumni affairs and external relations. The five associate deans will assist the seven deans.

The deans, however, would have to coordinate with the director for implementing all major decisions. Teachers holding the rank of professors are eligible to be appointed as deans.

A similar system of empowering deans for managing internal administrative work is practised in some of the IITs and NITs. "But our model will be different is some respects," an official said. For example, the NITs have six deans, we will have seven," an official said.

In the new system to befollowed in the IIEST, the role of the registrar will be less than that of the registrars of some IITs, like the one in Kharagpur.

Explaining how the deans would function, an institute source cited the example of the faculty affairs dean. "His responsibility would be to manage every activity related to teachers, starting from recruiting new teachers to overseeing all pension and post-retirement benefits."

Apart from senior teachers working as deans, the institute would set up various committees comprising senior faculty members to oversee the internal administration. "Altogether, 24 senior professors and associate professors will works as deans and as members of the committees," the official said.

The proposal to give functional powers to the deans has been approved by the institute's board of governors, its highest policy-making body. The decision would be ratified by the board in its next meeting to be held shortly.