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Mumbai, May 18: Infosys chief and Chairman of the governing body for IIM Ahmedabad NR Narayana Murthy has criticized the Government's plan to increase seats in IITs and IIMs to offset the impact of reservations on general category students.

The Government proposed to increase seats to appease the students protesting against the proposal to have 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes in top institutes.

Murthy says the goverment has no business to decide about seats. "People sitting in New Delhi cannot take these desicisons. A lot of variables need to be taken into account like the number of classrooms and hostel rooms. It is up to the chairman and the directors of the IITs and IIMs to take a desicison," says he.

He also pointed out the difficulty faced by these premier institutes in attracting good faculty members.
Murthy also criticized the Government for keeping the salary levels low and under strict control.

"It is unfortunate that these decisions do no lie with the institutes but with the Government. We are not going about this in the right way. Our insitutes will never be the world class institutes if this continues," he said.

Narayana Murthy's comments are the latest in a series of battles the IIMs have fought with the Government. It now remains to seen who wins this round.