"Prime Minster's Office has responded to our request. We will meet PMO officials tomorrow and Prime Minister on Friday," a top official of AIIITFF said.
Delhi Alumni Association, which has threatened to move court against the Centre's proposal, said that it is a "very positive development" and expressed hope that something would come out in the meeting to protect the IITs' independent academic entity. They have also sought a separate audience with the Prime Minister.
The meeting assumes significance in the wake of HRD Minister Kapil Sibal virtually ruling out going back on the Centre's new proposal.
Opposing the Centre's new format, the AIIITFF had written to the Prime Minister on May 31 saying that "each IIT is an individual and independent academic entity and should reserve its right to follow its own norms with regards to admissions and other academic matter".
Seeking Prime Minister's intervention, they had said that the IIT system should be preserved not only as per the provisions of the Acts but beyond.
Sibal, who is currently on a visit to the US, has said that the government has no intent to impinge on the autonomy of the IITs.
The Government had on May 28 announced that from 2013, aspiring candidates for IITs and other central institutes like NITs and IIITs will have to sit under a new format of common entrance test, which will also take the plus-two board results into consideration.
Sibal had claimed that it was approved without dissent at a council consisting of the IITs, the IIITs and the NITs.
