IIT-Gandhinagar: Looking to expand

Despite functioning from a makeshift campus within the Vishwakarma Engineering College (VEC) in Ahmedabad, the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) seems to be rubbing shoulders with its older peers.

"The only drawback in a makeshift campus is restriction in expansion. Yet, from day one we have kept telling ourselves — a temporary campus should not be an excuse for us," says its director, Sudhir K Jain, who was part of the civil engineering faculty at IIT Kanpur from 1984 to June 2009.

The new IIT, which began functioning from August 2008 under the mentorship of IIT Bombay (IIT-B), is one of the very few IITs — old or new — to have installed a 'Rapid Prototyping Machine' that creates 3D product prototypes using liquid ABS plastic based on data inputs from a student or researcher.

"I am not certain but only IIT Bombay and Kanpur would have this machine. Among the new IITs, we are the first. The machine has helped us tremendously in our research projects, as well as understanding of engineering behind products in the market," says Akshay Jain, 21, a B.Tech mechanical engineering student at IIT-Gn.

Spread across an area of 15,000 square metres within VEC, IIT-Gn's makeshift campus has laboratories and workshops for chemical, mechanical and civil engineering disciplines, classrooms, offices and hostel facilities for 360 students — 300 for men and 60 for female students. The institute has got Rs 10 crore, Rs 12.5 crore, Rs 23 crore, Rs 35 crore and Rs 32 crore for the last five years, respectively, as a grant from the government.

A new campus, to be ready within two years, will house 270 apartments for faculty and staff as well as 2,400 hostel rooms.

IIT-Gn has also inducted some retired faculty from older IITs, apart from bringing in several young faculty.

Girish Mudgal, CEO of Timetooth Technologies, which has recruited at IIT-Gn for the last two years, said, “Our requirement of manpower is of students, especially from IITs, who are interested in core engineering and have acquired strong fundamentals. This has been present at IIT-Gn in plenty.” The Noida-based firm, which has been recruiting from IIT Delhi, Kharagpur and Madras, recruited a couple of students from IIT-Gn for a CTC of Rs 6.5 lakh per annum.