IIT-Bhubaneswar to set up three schools

IIT-Bhubaneswar plans to set up three separate schools- School of Materials and Mineral Engineering, School of Ocean and Environmental Sciences and School of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering.

Madhusudan Chakraborty, director of IIT-Bhubaneswar said, “IIT-Kharagpur will have a borderless academic environment. We will have the concept of schools rather than departments and we will encourage the academic staff to work in an interdisciplinary environment.”

The institute would also introduce PHD programmes from this academic session.

“We are introducing PHD programmes from this year. There is a plan to provide a seed funding of Rs 5 lakh to every faculty member of IIT-Bhubaneswar to help them to initiate the research programmes”, said Chakraborty.

He was speaking at the commencement of the academic session of IIT-Bhubaneswar from its temporary campus in the city on Wednesday.

Naveen Patnaik, the Orissa chief minister and Damodar Acharya, director of IIT-Kharagpur were present on the occasion.

It may be noted that IIT-Bhubaneswar was registered on July 22 last year and the classes resumed on the following day at the campus of IIT-Kharagpur.

IIT-Bhubaneswar is being set up on 936 acres of land at Jatni, about 15 km from the city. Apart from providing land, the Orissa government has allocated fund for roads, water supply and other related infrastructure.

The master plan of the campus of IIT-Bhubaneswar is almost ready and we expect to make a presentation to the Orissa chief minister in September this year, said Chakraborty.

We have already appointed 24 full-time faculty members for IIT-Bhubaneswar. IIT-Bhubaneswar is getting support from other institutes in the city like Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT), National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) and the Central Tool Room and Training Centre”, he added.