National Institute of Technology on Ashok Rajpath. Telegraph picture

The National Institute of Technology would shift its base to Bihta, around 40km from the state capital, in phases over the next five years.

The new NIT campus would come up on 100 acres of land adjacent to the IIT premises, under construction at Amhara village in Bihta. The decision assumes significance because the authorities of the engineering college were initially against moving to a campus measuring less than 300 acres.

At present, the NIT functions from Ashok Rajpath, in the heart of the city.

Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (Biada) initially acquired the 100 acres of land earmarked for the new NIT campus and gave its possession paper to the department of science and technology. In April this year, the department handed over the paper to the NIT for starting construction of the new campus.

Asok De, the director of NIT, said: “We received a letter from the department of science and technology in April about the acquisition of 100 acres of land at Bihta for constructing the new campus.”

He said: “The shifting will be done in phases. First, the boundary wall would be erected. We have asked some government agencies to construct it. Also, the soil test would be conducted to determine the nature of constructions to be done.”

Around 10 days back, a team comprising officials of Biada, science and technology department and the NIT administration visited the proposed site.

Sources said the new NIT campus at Bihta would have vertical constructions. It would be modern and eco-friendly.

The NIT administration was earlier unwilling to accept less than 300 acres of land.

Taking side of the NIT administration, Union human resource and development minister Kapil Sibal had written a letter to chief minister Nitish Kumar in August, 2011, requesting him to provide the tech cradle 300 acres of land. He had reasoned that less than 300 acres would be detrimental to the status and the standard of an institute like NIT. But Nitish pleaded his inability to provide the institution more than 100 acres of land.

According to sources, the NIT administration decided to shift the campus because the new director was asked to so by both the Union and the state governments. The present NIT campus is less than 30 acres and has no space for expansion.

Sanjay Kumar, a professor of NIT, said: “NIT Patna runs seven under-graduate engineering courses — civil, mechanical, electrical, electronics, architecture, computer science and informa- tion technology.”

The institution could not start several other courses because of space crunch. The new campus would help the NIT authorities to start new programmes.