BITS Pilani may spend Rs 1,600 cr for expansion in five years

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, popularly known as BITS Pilani, is planning to spend Rs 1,600 crore in the next five years to expand its campuses in Pilani, Dubai, Goa and Hyderabad.
BITS Pilani-Hyderabad director V S Rao said today the aim is to take the total number of seats up to 18,500 from the present 11,600.
"BITS will be focusing on research and graduate courses in a big way. The total investment planned for the next five years will be Rs 1,600 crore on all four campuses. The current strength is 11,600. It will go up to 18,500 in the next five years," Rao said on the sidelines of a programme.

Replying to a query, he said though there are requests from many parts of the country to open campuses, BITS-Pilani currently has no plans to set up another institute.
What started in early 1900s as a small school by G D Birla, an eminent industrialist, blossomed into a set of colleges for higher education, ranging from the humanities to engineering until 1964 when all these colleges amalgamated to culminate into an Indian university of international standing, christened as BITS, Pilani.
Rao said there is huge shortage of good teaching faculty in the country and to overcome that thrust has to be given on the improvement of new technologies, such as virtual classrooms and online courses.

According to him, global institutions like MIT, Stanford University are offering online courses and Indian educational system should also move in that direction.
Of the total investment outlay, Rs 360 crore will be spent on the expansion of the Hyderabad campus to increase the total student strength to 5,000 from the current level of 3,000, Rao said adding that BITS-Pilani is celebrating its golden jubilee this year.