The newly installed gate of BIT-Sindri. (Gautam Dey)

BIT-Sindri is on tenterhooks, working day and night to prepare for next week’s crucial visit of a team that holds considerable significance for the future of the lone state-run engineering cradle of Jharkhand.

A team from University Grants Commission (UGC) is scheduled to visit the Sindri campus on October 5 and 6 to inspect its infrastructure and academic facilities, besides all-important student placement records, to consider BIT’s application for autonomy.

BIT-Sindri director S.K. Singh said heads of all departments had been instructed to make necessary preparations for the visit of the team that had to call off plans of coming to Dhanbad on September 20, 21 at the last minute.

“We have spruced up various areas of the institute like the sports ground, gymnasium, dispensary, auditorium, canteen, guest house and alumni house, besides our classrooms, laboratories, library and workshops,” Singh said, expressing hope that the UGC officials would be happy with what they see.

Singh said they were hopeful of a positive outcome as the institute had a 450-acre campus equipped with 25 hostels, adequate number of classrooms, laboratories, a well-stocked library, two playgrounds, a spacious guest house, a dispensary, canteen and gymnasium.

If BIT-Sindri does manage to impress UGC and is awarded the autonomy it so desires, then it will be the first autonomous institute under Vinoba Bhave University.

The institute, established in 1949, has 3,000 students pursuing BTech in the 10 engineering disciplines of mining, mechanical, production, chemical, metallurgical, civil, electrical, electronics and communication, computer science and information technology (IT).

Besides, 200 students are pursuing MTech in the five engineering disciplines of mechanical, electrical, metallurgical, chemical and civil.

On the advantages of autonomy, Singh said BIT would be able to function like a university and launch new programmes and courses.

“The nomenclature of some of the courses may also be changed as per the prevailing trend like, say, BTech in production engineering may be renamed BTech in industrial engineering,” said Girijesh Kumar, head of the department in Geology and training and placement officer.