Students at IIT-Patna would not have to move out of their campus to purchase daily stationery items or for getting their cycles repaired, as the institute has decided to provide all facilities within the campus.

The institute will have a grocery/departmental store, vegetables and fruit shops, milk and dairy products parlour, stationery and photo services shop, fruit and juice stall, barber shop, round-the-clock medicine shops and even cycle repair shops.

The IIT-Patna administration to meet the bare minimum needs of campus residents has decided to set up shops and start essential services within the campus. The IIT administration has issued a circular which is an expression of interest for setting up shops and essential services.Apart from setting up shops within the campus, the institute has also decided to provide laundry facilities, cable TV services from private operators at Bihta to the students. IIT-Patna on July 25 shifted to Bihta campus 35km west of Patna. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the campus.

Sources said the idea behind providing all facilities on the campus is to ensure that students and faculty members don't have to go all the way to Bihta town to purchase their daily essentials. A senior officer at IIT-Patna said: "As the campus is a residential one spread across 500 acres, and inhabited by around 1,000 students and over 500 teaching and non-teaching staff, the institute administration has decided to provide all the facilities within the campus."

Sources said all premier residential universities have such facilities. Institutes such as Jawaharlal Nehru University, IITs at Kharagpur and Kanpur, too, have such facilities so that students don't waste their time going out to purchase essential items.

A student claimed that once the construction work of IIT-Patna is completed, we expect that more facilities would be added for students. Older IITs such as Kanpur have a Café Coffee Day within the campus and students get 35 per cent concession at the kiosk. As the IIT-Patna campus is huge with students using cycle as a mode of transportation from their hostel to various academic blocks, a cycle repair shop would be of great help to students.

TI Cycles India, a bicycle manufacturing division, will also set up a cycle selling camp within the campus for students. The company sells Hercules and BSA cycles at a rebate of 20 per cent to IIT students.

Welcoming the move, Ballabh, an IIT-Patna student, said: "By setting up shops and providing essential services to students, we don't have to move out to Bihta town."