National Institute Science Education and Research in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Feb.18: The National Institute Science Education and Research (Niser) has decided to increase its seat intake from 60 to 100 from this academic session.

This was done after considering the popularity of the institute, a Niser official said.

While there were 18,000 applicants for 60 seats in 2012, it went up to 25,000 in 2013 and is expected to be more than 45,000 in 2014.

“We have already received more than 25,000 applications this year,” said coordinator of National Entrance Screening Test (Nest) Pranay Swain. Nest is a compulsory test for students seeking admission to Niser. He said this time Nest would be held in 45 cities. Three new centres — Trivandrum, Balasore and Belgaon — have been added this year.

“The number of test venues in Bhubaneswar will be decided after looking at the applications. So far there have been around 5,000 applications from Bhubaneswar alone,” Swain said.

“We wish to increase the seat intake further, but the lack of infrastructure remains a constraint. The intake can be increased once we move into our new campus,” said director Niser, V. Chandrashekhar.

“We intend to increase the seats to 200 when the time is right. Construction work on the new campus near Jatni is on in full swing. About 80 per cent construction is complete. We will be ready to shift by the end of December this year,” he added.

The institute also intends to introduce new branches as well as new subjects under the MSc integrated courses after shifting to the new campus. The institute also plans to take 1,000 postgraduate students, who would work under 250 faculties. At present, Niser has about 70 PhD students.

Work is on to put in place a “sophisticated analytical instrument facility” that can be accessed by researchers and educational institutions in Odisha.

“The facility will have sophisticated analytical instruments such as electron microscopes, mass spectrometers, X-Ray diffractometers etc, vital for pursuing research and development in many areas of science and technology,” said Niser registrar A.K. Naik.

“These instruments will be available under one roof to cater to the needs of the research community. Many institutions in the state do not have such instruments and access to such facility will help the researchers and institutes to keep pace with the developments taking place globally,” Naik said.