BIT-Mesra, Ranchi

BIT-Mesra is all set to have a brighter e-feather in its cap.

The sprawling 780-acre campus of the elite management and engineering school, 16km from capital Ranchi, which is partly Wi-Fi-enabled, will soon go full throttle on wireless fidelity with every classroom being equipped with audiovisual teaching aid.

The cradle, with 6,000 students on its rolls, boasts 22 departments, research laboratories, lecture halls, a central library with over 100,000 books and journals, besides electronic database. Only the R&D department and the area near the central library are Wi-Fi enabled, and the authorities of the deemed university wish to extend the facility across campus, including hostels.

Currently, the 14 hostels — 12 for boys and two for girls — have LAN (local area network), which enables students to access the Internet on their laptops and desktops. Similarly, the main administrative building and staff rooms work on LAN.

Confirming the decision to upgrade the BIT-Mesra campus, deputy registrar S.S. Akhtar said they had already started the process of make the entire cradle a Wi-Fi hotspot so that both students and teachers embrace e-learning. “The idea is to introduce smart classes, which will save time and energy of students and faculty members.”

Akhtar added that the central library too would receive an edge. “We will soon stock up more than 1,100 international journals, besides offering e-journals.”

Students are understandably upbeat. “The best engineering and management colleges in the country are Wi-Fi-enabled. We are glad to be joining the league,” said third-year mechanical engineering student Apoorva Kumar.

“We do have LAN, but accessing Internet is difficult at times because of network issues,” said Animesh Vibhuti, a final-year IT student, who lives in a hostel. “Once the campus is Wi-Fi, we can even use our smartphones to access information and read emails on the go,” he added.

Another IT student, Uday Bhanu, pointed out that group study would be easier. “We will also be able to share class notes on WhatsApp,” he said.