New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS): The Lok Sabha Wednesday passed the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) Bill, 2014 which will declare some IT institutions to be of national importance and provide manpower of global standards.

The bill seeks to provide the four existing IIITs an independent statutory status and proposes to declare them as institutes of national importance to enable them to grant degrees to their students.

Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani said: "We are trying to improve the quality of education in the institutions we have. We want to bring in a process through which advertisements would be put out for faculty members."

Replying to criticism that the bill was trying to alter the governance structures of the IIITs, Irani said the IIIT governance structure was like that of the IITs and the NIITs which were formed by acts of parliament.

"So to question it is to question an act of parliament," she said.