IIT-Kharagpur to spend Rs 400cr

IIT-Kharagpur is investing Rs 400 crore in its infrastructure expansion in an attempt to double its student and faculty intake and to scale up its academic programmes. Funds have been raised through government grants, alumni and corporate funding.

The institute at present has 7,000 students and 500 faculty which would be doubled in the next five years.

By 2010, IIT-Kharagpur plans to accommodate 12,000 students.

At a press conference in Kolkata today, Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of the board of governors of IIT-Kharagpur, informed, "We are going to build 200 new classrooms with a total capacity of 24,000 students. We will also add 200 tutorial classrooms to accommodate 12,000 students."

The institute will also add a new academic complex, christened Nalanda.

It will build three new hostels to accommodate 12,000 students.

At present, the institute accommodates 6,000 students in hostels, which will be doubled. Similarly, the institute offers accommodation for 450 faculty at present, which will also be doubled.

IIT-Kharagpur will build a new girl-student hostel to accommodate 600 students.

The B R Ambedkar Hall of Residence will accommodate 2,000 students while the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hall of Residence will have space for another 2,000.

More rooms will be added to the existing hostels to accommodate students and faculty.

"Apart from three new hostels, we will add one more floor to existing halls to create additional capacity for 1500 students," said Damodar Acharya, director of IIT-Kharagpur.

The institute also plans to set up four new centres of excellence - School of Entrepreneurship, School of Infrastructure Design and Management, Steel Technology Centre, Centre of Excellence in Telecommunication Engineering in PPP mode with Vodafone and Alpheon.

The new programmes are likely to begin from the 2008 academic session.

A correction

Our report published in Business Standard on December 29 (IIT Kharagpur to invest Rs 400cr on infra) had mentioned that the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur had plans to set up four new schools in public-private partnership mode with Vodafone and Alpheon, which helps companies manage and maintain technology.

Alpheon President and CEO Greg Donovan has clarified that it has no overseas initiatives at this time. The error is regretted.