IIT chairman Ajai Chowdhry and (right) director AK Bhowmick address the news meet on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Computer science graduate Abhinav will receive the President’s gold medal from Pranab Mukherjee at the second convocation of IIT-Patna on Saturday.

President Mukherjee will attend the convocation of the tech cradle during his brief visit to the city. Along with Abhinav, 89 other students graduating this year will get their degrees at the ceremony.

Kshitij, an electrical engineering passout, will get the second gold medal this year — from the director of the institute. He will also get a silver medal, along with Abhinav, for topping their respective classes. Ashutosh Kumar would be the third student to get the silver medal.

IIT-Patna director A.K. Bhowmick, at a news meet on Friday, said: “Eighty-nine students of the 2009-2013 batch will get their degrees from President Pranab Mukherjee at a function at Rabindra Bhavan.”

The function will start at 4.30pm and is expected to end by 5.45 in the evening. According to the President’s schedule, he would stay for only an hour and 15 minutes in the city. Besides him, Governor D.Y. Patil, chief minister Nitish Kumar, IIT chairman and founder of HCL Ajai Chowdhry and other senior officials of the institute will attend it.

The gala event has sparked excitement among the students. They are keen to get their degrees from the President. Praveen Chand, a final-year electrical engineering student, said: “It will be great to receive the degree from the President.”

While the preparations for the convocation are on in full swing, the work at the permanent campus of IIT-Patna is also on, said director Bhowmick. “We shall shift to the new campus by the middle of 2014,” he said.

Chairman Chowdhry said: “When the institute had started functioning at the transit campus at Patliputra Colony in 2008, the intake of students was 92. Now, it has increased to 771. The faculty strength of the institute at present is 78. We shall soon increase it to 90.”