IIT students attend the 5th foundation day of their college in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 12: IIT-Bhubaneswar is set to introduce a number of subjects from the next academic session at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including BTech in computer science.

The premier institute will also start MSc courses in physics, chemistry and mathematics, said institute director Madhusudan Chakraborty, during the fifth foundation day programme of IIT-Bhubaneswar today.

“We are also planning to increase the intake of students for MTech and PhD courses,” he said.

At present, the institute offers BTech programmes in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, each having 40 seats. The proposed computer science branch will also have 40 seats.

“We have 100 students in PhD programmes and we are planning to increase it to 200 from the next session in some subjects,” the director said.

At present, the premier institute functions from eight campuses scattered across the city, while the permanent campus is coming up at Arugul on the outskirts of the city.

“We are very happy with the quality of the faculty members that we have. They have published as many as 280 papers. Research projects worth Rs 10 crore are running at our institute and about Rs 6 crore are in the pipeline,” said Chakraborty.

Talking about the Arugul campus spread over 935 acres, the director said work was progressing well and they would shift to the permanent campus by the beginning of 2014.

So far, about 40 per cent of the current graduating batch of 107 students has been shortlisted by renowned companies such as the Malaysia-based Finisar, Flipkart (online trading company), Bharat Petro Chemicals Ltd, Tata Steel, Samsung, Avitec, and so on, said registrar B.K. Ray.

Executive director of the Tata group R. Gopalakrishnan, in his foundation day lecture, focused on India’s uniqueness and opportunities ahead.

“India is on the verge of a change and we are part of the change. But we are unable to foresee the opportunities. The young must grab the opportunities and build their citadels of success,” he said.