Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, will invest over Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) in next 10 years in infrastructure development and creation of new accommodation facilities for students as it plans to increase the total seat strength from 4,300 to 10,000 by 2013, chairman of IIT's board of governors Sanjiv Goenka said on Tuesday.
"It has been decided that the number of students would be increased from 4,300 to 10,000 as also effect a simultaneous increase in the faculty strength from 450 to 1000 by 2013," Goenka told a press conference after a meeting with the tech-school senate during the day.
At least Rs 170 crore (Rs 1.70 billion) would be invested in creating 10 hi-tech hostels inside the campus to accommodate the huge student population and the rest would be spent in creation of allied facilities.
Goenka said the institute had introduced a standing advertisement concept for recruiting faculty members and the selections began a fortnight back.
"Fifteen promising faculty members for four departments have already been finalised through this fast track process and we will be able to get around 100 new faculty members for all departments soon," he added.
Goenka said the senate had also decided to appoint an external auditor to audit its internal accounts and bring in more transparency. The name of the audit firm would be finalised soon, he said.
In addition, a post-graduate diploma course in business management would also be instituted only for engineering graduates at a school proposed to be set up in Kolkata to provide them the much-needed business acumen.
Goenka said a renewed marketing drive would also be taken up to attract foreign students to the various undergraduate courses of the technology school.
According to a new perspective plan drafted by the institute, more focus would be given to research in selected areas like computer science and technology, micro-systems, nanotechnology, bioinformatics, DNA technology, robotics, polymer science, seismology and disaster management.
The senate also introduced the 'Kalpana Chawla Memorial fellowship' of Rs 15,000 per month to be given to a woman PhD scholar working in the area of space technology.
Goenka said the institute would also organise its first ever alumni meet in January next year, in which at least 300 eminent former students of IIT, Kharagpur would participate.
