Mechanical science student Raghav R receives President of India gold medal and (above) students take pledge on the occasion of IIT Bhubaneswar’s first batch convocation at XIMB auditorium in Bhubaneswar. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 31: Students from IIT-Bhubaneswar didn’t emulate their counterparts at National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) when it came to placements.

Unlike those at Niser, the first batch of IITians here have preferred jobs to higher studies and research. Only 10 out of the 93 IITians, who received degrees at the institutes’ first annual convocation here today, have opted for higher studies.

Among the 10 are President of India gold medal winner Raghav R, from the school of mechanical sciences. He will be pursuing higher education at Stanford University. Students who opted for jobs were offered placements by companies such as Flipkart, Caterpillar, Deloitte, TCS (R&D), Tata (R&D) and Essar with annual salaries of about Rs 7 lakh.

It is another matter that in his speech, former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India Anil Kakodkar, who handed over the degrees to the students, emphasised on quality education at such premier institutes. “High quality of research in our engineering and technological institutions must be emphasised. Such research should cover a wide spectrum of disciplines ranging from basic sciences and engineering to humanities, economics and management,” Kakodkar said.

“IITs have to take the challenge to lead the way for national efforts to create a paradigm shift in terms of capability to usher in domestic-technology enabled national development and also to enhance the number of high-quality engineering graduates to support nation building that also includes cutting-edge research,” he added.

Apart from Raghav R, silver medals were also conferred on Vasu Gupta from the School of Electrical Sciences and Anurag Raj from the School of Infrastructure for topping in their respective departments.

The institute awarded its first PhD to Nithin V. George from the School of Electrical Sciences. Similarly, the first DSc (honoris causa) was conferred on associate director of research and head, materials science and component technology directorate, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC, USA, Bhakta B. Rath , who hails from Banki in Odisha.

Director M. Chakraborty said the institute proposes to set up two new schools in the second phase of its expansion.

“We propose to set up a school of chemical and biochemical engineering and school of design and creative arts,” he said. “We will be moving to the new campus by July 2014,” he said.

At present, the total enrolment of students is nearly 500. This includes 442 students from the undergraduate level and 55 at the PhD level. The new MTech and PhD programme in basic science and engineering, which has a sanctioned intake of 90 students, has commenced from July 2012.