IIT Guwahati Director T G Sitharam gets appointed as chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

As per government notification dated November 17, T G Sitharam will be serving as the Council head for three years or before he turns 65 years old, whichever is earlier.

Sitharam will be taking over from UGC chairman Jagadesh Kumar, who was the interim charge of the AICTE chairman post after Anil Sahasrabuddhe was released from his duties on September 1, 2021.

Sitharam gets appointed at a time when the Ministry of Education is putting final touches to a Bill that intends to merge the AICTE and the University Grants Commission into a super regulator called the Higher Education Commission of India.

Sitharam’s appointment creates a vacancy at IIT Guwahati since his term as director was only set to expire in July 2024.

Before Sitharam joined as Director of IIT Guwahati, he was a professor in the department of civil engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Sitharam was a chair professor in the area of Energy and Mechanical Sciences at IISc. Sitharam is known for his research documents on rock mechanics and rock engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering and earth dams and tailing ponds.