IIT Patna new sprawling campus soon

PATNA: The IIT-Patna has reasons to cheer as finally the process for land acquisition for its campus is complete and days are not far off when this newly-created technical institute will have its own sprawling campus. Around 500 acres near Bihta, about 30 km from the state capital, has been acquired to set up the new IIT campus.

The land acquisition has been done by the Infrastructure Development Authority (IDA). Earlier, the state government had decided to set up the IIT at Sikandrapur on Bihta-Bhojpur Road. But it later shifted the venue to Amhara on Bihta-Aurangabad Road after an IIT-Roorkee team said that Sikandrapur area was prone to waterlogging.

Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal will lay the foundation stone for construction of the new premises of IIT-Patna on April 19, while chief minister Nitish Kumar will preside over the function. The welcome address will be delivered by chairman, board of governors, IIT-P, G Madhavan Nair.

It may be mentioned here that IIT-Patna is functioning from a new building constructed on the premises of the New Government Polytechnic, Pataliputra Colony, since August 2008. The IIT-P recently hired the building of Software Technology Park of India (STPI), Patna, adjacent to the institute, where it has labs and classrooms to teach electrical, electronics and computer science and chambers for the faculty.

“My vision was to make the present campus look like a mini IIT till its permanent campus is ready at Bihta. That is why, we recently hired the STPI building to accommodate more students and facilities,” said the IIT-P director, Prof Anil K Bhowmick, recently. A new hostel with larger capacity has also been constructed adjacent to the existing hostels. The hostels are provided with wi-fi facility. The institute has also rented several flats to accommodate girl students.

“However, we hope that if everything goes well, in the next two-and-a-half years our new campus will be ready at Bihta. It will be a township as of other major IITs in the country like Kharagpur,Delhi or Kanpur,” said IIT-Patna registrar Subhash Pandey.