Dhanbad, Sept. 20: Where the state has failed, alumni have succeeded. They have found a way to cope with scarcity of teachers at BIT, Sindri.

Members of the North America chapter of BIT Sindri Alumni Association (BITSAA) have decided to take classes for third and final-year students of the tech institute via video-conferencing.

The decision was recently taken at the meeting of the chapter at Princeton in New Jersey. Classes will start after the Puja vacation ends in November.

Giving details, head of the computer science engineering department of the institute and secretary of BITSAA D.K. Singh said: “Former students, who are in the teaching profession, have been mainly roped in. Classes will be held at the conference hall for about two hours after 5pm three to four days a week. The schedule will be prepared as per the convenience of the voluntary teachers and accordingly, informed to the students a week in advance.”

Each class will have 50 students and lectures will be on emerging areas such as computer science engineering and information technology with special focus on MEMS, image processing, information security and networking. “There will be lectures on mechanical engineering too,” Singh said.

This is not all. The North America chapter of the alumni association has also agreed to double the number of scholarships it provides to the final-year students. At present, it grants a scholarship of $5,000 to the toppers of the ten engineering departments of the institute.

Besides, a group of 25 former students — 15 from electronics engineering and five each of computer science engineering and IT — who are currently placed with various companies to work through outsourcing on a project of computational biology for mobile processor manufacturing company Qualcomm.

Ritesh Mukherjee, a 2004 batch student of electronics engineering department, is leading the project.Qualcomm will set up an advanced laboratory worth Rs 1 crore at BIT Sindri on the completion of the project.

Meanwhile, other chapters of BITSAA, Delhi and Bermo, have also decided to lend a helping hand to the institute to better its infrastructure. While the Delhi Chapter is planning to construct a conference hall at the institute with assistance from the industry under corporate social responsibility project, the Bermo group will renovate the Desh Pandey Auditorium.

The institute is gearing up to hold a series of lectures as part of its Diamond Jubilee Lecture Series that kicked off early this year.

Director of MDI, Gurgaon, B.S. Sahay, who is also a former students of BIT Sindri, will visit the campus in November-December in this regard. Shankar Lal Maskara, the retired head of the electronics and electrical communication department of IIT, Kharagpur, has also agreed to deliver a lecture.