60 of top 100 JEE rankers opt to study at IIT-Bombay

MUMBAI: Sixty of the top 100 JEE rankers have opted for IIT-Bombay compared to 67 last year. This year, all the toppers have selected computer science.
Even among faculty looking for positions and postgraduate students, IIT-B has been a preferred choice of campus among the other tech schools. In the last five years, 235 faculty have joined the Powai campus.
“We have a strong international outlook and are located in a great place too,” said IIT-B director Devang Khakhar.In a press briefing outlining what IIT-B plans to achieve under the newly earned Institute of Eminence (IoE) tag, Khakhar said the college wants to broaden its academic offerings and up its research intensity. The plans include introduction of new undergraduate programmes in math, biology, earth science and management; and postgraduate courses in history, political science, film-making, data science and corporate law.
A joint degree with a local public medical school is also on the cards. “We were looking at a joint master-PhD medical programme in which the clinical work could be done at the medical college and research at IIT-B,” said Khakhar. Five world-class labs in nano fabrication and characterization, materials and advanced manufacturing, health sciences and engineering data and information science and sustainable chemical science have been proposed.
While the IoE status will give the institute Rs 1,000 crore over the five years and with all other income like fees, money generated through training, contributions from donations and other projects, IIT-B will have Rs 2,240 crore at its disbursal. The boost in funding will see the lion’s share being set aside for research, followed by infrastructure.
The 100-acre beyond the pipeline will see new construction and the old construction is likely to give way to towers. New hostels for 12,000 students and a married students’ hostel are planned. “Various support cells have also been planned. Teaching, learning, writing support cell, conference organizing support cell, support for academically weak candidates, have been proposed.” IIT-B aims to increase the number of post-doctorate candidates from 150 to 750, hire 200-250 more faculty from the current 640and set up a special placement cell for PhDs. tnn