Maritime varsity to open campus at Cochin port

The Indian Maritime University (IMU) will open a regional campus at Cochin port. This will be the fourth regional campus of IMU, headquartered in Chennai. The Cochin Port Trust board in its next meeting will consider the allotment of 10 acres of land in Willingdon Island for setting up the campus. Other campuses of IMU are at Visakhapatnam, Kolkata and Mumbai ports.

The central university offers courses like BSc Nautical Science to prepare cadets for deck jobs in the shipping sector, BE Marine Engineering and MBA in port & shipping management and international transportation and port management. It also offers B Tech (Naval Architecture).

The university will immediately commence the first batch of the fully residential programme of BSc Nautical Science with a strength of 40 candidates at Kochi. P Vijayan, vice chancellor, IMU, visited the proposed site and held discussions with N Ramachandran, chairman of Cochin Port Trust, for finalising arrangements for starting the courses by September 1, 2009. The facilities at port like workshop, fire station and hospital will be made available to IMU for training purposes free of charge by the port trust.