 "IIT Kanpur wants campus near Lucknow Airport")
The premier Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) is mulling an extension campus near the Lucknow airport for greater collaboration with industry and researchers due to direct air connectivity.
The industrial city of Kanpur still lacks a functional civil airport and the Lucknow campus of the IIT-K is projected to help in forging partnerships in research and skills training.
The Institute is seeking 20 acres of land from the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) near Lucknow airport provides direct air connectivity to several key Indian and some Gulf destinations.
IIT-K has submitted a formal proposal to the UP government and a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is likely to be prepared soon.
The campus would complement the ongoing academic research, training, industrial and manufacturing activities of the Institute, IIT-K Associate Professor (Finance & Entrepreneurship) Dr B V Phani told Business Standard. He is directly associated with the project.
He said the Lucknow campus project was estimated at nearly Rs 300 crore and would take 3-4 years to complete once work begins on the ground. "The campus would offer world class facilities for skill development, training and manufacturing, besides common facilitation centres and spaces for industries."
The campus would additionally serve as an incubation centre to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship in consort with industry.
Meanwhile, IIT-K is keen to join hands with other reputed institutions in the region viz. Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L), Lucknow Biotech Park, Hartcourt Butler Technological Institute (HBTI), Kanpur, UP Council of Science and Technology (CST) etc.
"We want everyone on board so that we could work together and contribute towards the success of the proposed campus in Lucknow," Phani added.
He noted UP's strength lies in agriculture, traditional industries/craftsmanship and tourism.
"However, the state is still not able to compete on the national and international stage. IIT-K wants to directly contribute towards enabling UP realise its full economic potential by capitalising on its core strengths through technological innovations and interventions," he said.
IIT-K already has a smaller campus in Noida spanning roughly 5 acres. Another block is likely to come up in Noida next year. Besides, the Institute has an incubation facility at the famed Wall Street in New York, USA.
Phani maintained IIT-K had one of the best academic and training ecosystems in India in terms of space, campus, lab facilities, testing/prototyping etc. He is the coordinator of SDBI Innovation Incubation Center at IIT-K.
Of late, IIT-K has been making efforts to improve its teacher-student ratio by inducting more faculties. Against the sanctioned strength of 650 teachers, the campus only has 500 faculty members, including 100 odd PhD students.
Individual faculty members have been suggested to contribute in their capacity towards better research works, publications and academics, so that it cultivates a more positive image of IIT-K in global academic and professional circuit, which ultimately helps in bettering global rankings.
Spread over 1,055 acres, IIT-K is situated on the Grand Trunk (GT) road in Kanpur City. It first started from a borrowed building of HBTI in 1959 with 100 students before flowering into a major educational hub with 6,500 students today.
All this while, IIT-K is making structural changes in pursuit of higher rankings, including increasing intake of foreign students. There is a strong belief amongst the IIT-K community that the low global rankings are not reflective of the actual academic and infrastructure facilities available in the campus, but more structural and procedural that impedes fair analysis of the ground realities.
The Institute has signed two MoUs with the National University of Singapore and the Melbourne University (Australia) to offer joint degrees.
While, IIT-K was ranked 271st in the QS World University rankings released last month, the Institute exited from the list of top 100 of another prestigious rankings, the Times Higher Education University Asia Rankings 2015, although it had figured amongst top 100 last year.
In the QS World University rankings, two Indian institutes viz. Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru and IIT Delhi were ranked within the top 200 at 147 and 179 places respectively.
However, IIT-K was declared best engineering institute in India by India Today Group-Nielsen Best Colleges Survey for the second year on the trot. IIT Delhi was ranked second.
