Patna, Dec. 12: National Institute of Technology (NIT) Patna will hold its sixth convocation tomorrow.

A total of 524 successful undergraduate students, 227 postgraduate students and a PhD student will get degrees from the Governor Ram Nath Kovind, who is the chancellor of state universities.

Manish Sabharwal, the chairman of the NIT-Patna's board of governors appointed last January, will also attend the function for the first time. Sabharwal is co-founder and chairman of TeamLease Services and has a management degree from Wharton, US.

Sabharwal told The Telegraph: "Our focus is to develop academics and infrastructure of the institute so that the gap of NIT and IITs is erased." Sabharwal spoke of giving more attention to placements of students along with research activities.

NIT-Patna will start building its new campus in Bihta shortly. Director Asok De said: "Our institute will sign an agreement with the department of science and technology on December 14 to get possession of the land after which the boundary wall will be built." The new institute is coming up in Bihta over 125 acres.

NIT-Patna, which is struggling with space crunch, has received land in Sultanganj village. Construction of the new campus will also provide a new lease of life to the institute and students. NIT's biggest problem is to provide hostel accommodation to students. Around 40 per cent male students live in private accommodation around Ashok Rajpath. Over the past few years, the NIT-Patna administration has built new hostel blocks but that has proved insufficient.

At tomorrow's convocation, 15 students from different branches (postgraduate and undergraduate), declared branch toppers, will get gold medals. Among undergraduates, Ashish Kumar from mechanical engineering with a CGPA of 9.75, has been declared the overall branch topper in undergraduate stream.

In postgraduate (MTech), Rohit Kothari from mechanical engineering with a CGPA of 9.68, has been declared the overall topper. On Monday, the institute carried out a dress rehearsal of the convocation at SK Memorial hall.

Anshu, a final-year architecture student who too will receive the degree at the convocation, said: "It has been four years at NIT-Patna. We have fond memories and will miss the days spent at the institute."

Anshu of Gaya, who has done her BTech in architecture, has been placed with Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, Durgapur, Bengal.