NEW DELHI: The long pending move to accord degree-granting powers to 15 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) set up through public private partnership (PPP) finally got Cabinet approval on Wednesday. The Cabinet also approved setting up of 50 new Kendriya Vidyalayas at a cost of Rs 1160 crore.The IIIT Bill had been one of the many thorny issues between the HRD ministry and the PMO around the time when then HRD minister Smriti Irani was replaced by Prakash Javadekar. One of the key differences with the PMO over the Bill was on the degree of autonomy to these institutes and specifically the role of the President of India as Visitor to the institutes.It is learnt now that the ministry finally gave in to the PMO argument and the provisions to enable the Visitor’s role in appointment of the directors and chairpersons at the IIITs have been done away with. As per the draft IIIT Bill, the Visitor was to be the apex authority to all IIITs.The PMO is learnt to have pitched complete autonomy for the institutes with minimal or no governmental role in the appointment process.While the ministry had earlier agreed to considerably pare down the powers and role of the IIIT Council to make it a purely advisory body unlike the IIT Council whose decisions are binding on all IITs, it had concerns about the PMO’s suggestion to drop all role in the key appointments as well.The Bill will declare the 15 IIITs on PPP mode as ‘Institutions of National Importance’ with powers to award degrees. This will entitle them to use the nomenclature of Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) or Master of Technology (M.Tech) or Ph.D degree as issued by a university or an institution of national importance.