Patna, Feb. 3: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Patna, is planning to introduce new courses after most of its first-batch students managed to bag job offers through campus placement.

Students will be able to study four new masters courses at IIT-Patna from July this year. Ten students would be admitted to each course.

The new courses at the tech hub will be offered under two new schools —engineering and technology, and basic science. Mecatronics and infrastructure engineering will be under the first school. Students will be able to study nanotechnology and nanoscience as well as maths and computing under the school of basic science.

Students, who have either a BTech or BSc degree, will be able to apply for these courses. Aspirants will have to take an admission test followed by an interview before the final selection.

A.K. Bhowmick, director, IIT-Patna, said: “We will start the MTech courses from the next semester.”

He added: “The Mtech course that we are offering are relevant and much in demand. Mecatronics deals with moving parts of robots. Nanotechnology and nanoscience are also very much in demand.”

The IIT-Patna director also said: “As we are operating from a transit campus, we are working with limited resources. This prevents us from starting new undergraduate courses.”

“We don’t have a problem in starting these postgraduate courses, as we will have to accommodate only 40 students. But once we start the undergraduate courses, we will have to accommodate more than 100 students,” he said

At present, the tech institute is functioning from its transit campus in Patliputra. This has, however, not stopped its students from bagging lucrative job offers in top-notch companies like Microsoft IDC and Headstrong.

Sources said the construction work at the new campus at Bihta is progressing at good speed. The boundary wall at the site is complete. The premises spread over 500 acres would be ready by July 2013.

Once opened, the engineering institute would offer more courses.

Bhowmick said: “Once we shift to our new campus at Bihta, we will start a few more BTech courses, including civil engineering, chemical engineering and material engineering.”

The new campus will also have sports facilities, including separate courts and grounds for football, hockey, cricket, volleyball, badminton and mini-golf. There will also be academic and administrative blocks besides hostels for students and accommodation for employees.