IIT in Himachal to begin session this year

Engineering aspirants from Himachal Pradesh have a reason to rejoice. The government has accepted the proposal to set up an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Mandi in HP. The Rs 760 crore institute is expected to begin its first session from this year.

The institute will host degree programmes in mechanical, software and electrical engineering with 40 seats each. The institute also plans to conduct management courses from next year. IIT-Roorkee director Professor SC Saxena has been appointed as caretaker director of the proposed IIT-Mandi by the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry.

Saxena told Business Standard that the appointment of faculty and requisite administrative staff is being done on a war footing. “We have started advertising the vacancies through various media and expect the recruitment procedure to complete before the session starts in July this year,” he said. The admission to various engineering courses will be based upon the performance in the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE).

HP higher education director O P Sharma told this paper that the Union minister of state for external affairs, Anand Sharma, had already kickstarted the construction work of the institute last month by inaugurating the possession of about 530 acres of land at Kamand allotted for the institute. “The state government is also profoundly interested in this and there is no obstacle in starting the first session this year,” he assured.