Mamata Banerjee checks out some of the stalls with Kallol Datta, chairman of the exhibition committee. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, hopes to make it to the top-20 league globally by wooing back the best of students.

State-of-the-art laboratories, foreign faculty and professionals in administrative roles top the agenda in the institute’s attempt to ensure that the 100 top IIT-JEE rankers choose the Kharagpur campus.

The dean of alumni affairs and international relations at IIT Kharagpur, Amit Patra, said a survey conducted by the institute had revealed top rankers were staying away because it was “not a metro campus”.

He was speaking at an interactive session involving the institute’s officiating director, Shankar Kumar Shom, and IIT alumni on the sidelines of the PanIIT Global Conference 2012, partnered by The Telegraph, at Science City on Friday.

Damodar Acharya, former director of the institute, was present on the occasion.

“We will create state-of-the-art facilities in our labs and enhance infrastructure….A large-scale brand-building exercise publicising the potentials of our institute would help attract the best students,” Patra said.

None of the IITs featured among the top 200 educational institutions in the latest QS World University Rankings. IIT Delhi was placed 212th, followed by IIT Bombay at 227 and IIT Kanpur at 278 with no mention of IIT Kharagpur.

Making it to the top 20 forms the core of IIT Kharagpur’s Vision 2020.

“Once we emerge as one of the top 20 technology institutes, we will make it to the top-50 league in overall ranking,” Patra said.

“We want to enrol overseas students….engage faculty from abroad,” said the professor. “By getting professionals in administrative units such as placement and hostel management cells, we want to unburden professors… help them concentrate on teaching and research.”

The institute also plans to create an endowment fund of Rs 4,000 crore by 2020.