It was a cheerful Monday for hundreds of candidates who queued up for admissions to Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad, as the Lok Sabha cleared the ISM to IIT Bill.
The Union Cabinet had approved the upgrade on May 25 after which the bill was presented in the lower house. Now, the bill awaits Rajya Sabha clearance and the President's nod.
As many as 889 students took admissions to BTech and five-year integrated courses on Monday. Total seats are, however, 912 - 824 in BTech and 88 in integrated BTech and MTech.
Of them, many claimed that their decision was spurred by the recent decision to upgrade the ISM to IIT.
Vibhu Pandey, son of an Income Tax commissoner in New Delhi, chose ISM to study mechanical engineering over several top colleges in the national capital. "My decision was entirely based on the Union cabinet's decision and I am sure that the Parliament will also clear the bill soon. Though Dhanbad is a smaller town than Delhi, I chose ISM as I got a better branch of engineering. I also had offers from IIT-Roorkee and IIT-Kharagpur but I was not getting my preferred subject," said Vibhu, accompanied by his parents Manoj and Shalini Pandey.
On emotional quotient, he spilled his links to Jharkhand. "My maternal grandfather V.S. Dubey was the first chief secretary of Jharkhand. Though we are natives of Patna in Bihar and presently settled in New Delhi, we are emotionally attached to the state," said the Delhi Public School, RK Puram, pass out, adding he liked the campus.
A BTech chemical engineering aspirant from Patna, Aditya Gaurav, agreed to Vibhu.
"The campus is quite impressive. The cleanliness and overall maintenance of the institute is good. Today's (Monday) arrangements were also good. Besides, the recent Union cabinet's approval helped me reach the decision to join ISM," said Aditya, who is the son of Income Tax officer (ITO) of Patna, Sunil Kumar Diwakar.
Elaborate arrangements for the admission were made at the student activity centre of the institute. Eight separate counters were allotted for reporting by the candidate, certificate verification, fee submission, identity card application, library card, hostel allocation, taking measurements for dresses and opening students' account.
ISM offers BTech courses in computer science and engineering, mechanical, electronics and communication, electrical and mining, petroleum, civil, electronics and instrumentation, chemical, environmental and mining machinery engineering and engineering physics. Computer science engineering, mathematics and computing, applied geology and applied geophysics are taught under the five-year Integrated BTech and MTech degree course.
