A long-awaited dream of students graduating from the Birla Institute of Technology (BIT)-Patna campus - of receiving degrees on their own campus - will come true on Saturday.

Earlier, students passing out of the Patna campus, set up around a decade ago, had to visit the institute's main campus in Mesra to collect degrees during the convocation.

Mesra is near Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand. BIT-Patna is an extension of the Mesra campus.

This year, the BIT convocation was held on January 10 on the main Mesra campus but students from BIT off-campus were not invited to attend it. President Pranab Mukherjee was the chief guest there.

Sources said the BIT-Mesra administration made a last-minute change before the convocation by issuing an urgent notice. "The degree distribution in the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations/Convocation on January 10, 2016 is only for students of BIT-Mesra," it said.

BIT-Patna director S.P. Lal said: "The institute has decided to hold off the campus convocation so as to give more exposure to BIT-Patna students."

Echoing Lal, BIT-Patna media in-charge Sridhar Kumar said: "The BIT-Mesra administration had decided to hold the convocation at the respective off campuses so as to develop more activity on campus."

He added that apart from students graduating in the 2014-15 batch from BIT-Patna, students from BIT-Deoghar and Allahabad will attend the convocation on Saturday.

On February 20, students from the BIT's Lalpur (Ranchi) and Calcutta were awarded degrees on the Lalpur campus. Similarly, students from the BIT's Jaipur and Noida campuses were conferred degrees at Jaipur on February 22.

Not all students are happy with the change in the system.

A final-year mechanical engineering student said: "Attending degree ceremony/convocation at BIT-Mesra is different than attending functions on our campus. Had we attended the January function in Ranchi, we would have got the degrees from the President."

Around 200 students of the 2014-15 session will receive the degree. Science and technology minister Jai Kumar Singh will be the chief guest of the function, and BIT-Mesra vice-chancellor M.K. Mishra will also be there. The function will be held at 10.30am at the BIT auditorium.