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New Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Tirupati and Palakkad will start functioning in temporary campuses from July, according to Bhaskar Ramamoorthy, Director, IIT Madras, which is the mentor institute for setting up the two new institutes.
While land has been allotted to build the IIT Tirupati campus, a panel has zeroed in on the land at Palakkad, he told Business Line on the sidelines of the reunion of the 1970 batch alumni of IIT Madras.
To begin with, 120 undergraduate students will be enrolled in each of the two IITs. However, the disciplines are yet to be decided, he said without giving the date of completion of the two permanent campuses.
IIT Madras will be involved in setting up the infrastructure, faculty and ensure the quality of education provided in the two new institutes is on par with the existing ones, he said.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu government has allotted land to IIT Madras for a second campus between Vandalur and Kelambakkam in the city outskirts. Research efforts will move to the new location, he said.
It is not possible to expand more at IIT Madras. A maximum of another 500 students can be accommodated. Currently, the institute has nearly 8,500 students of which around 3,500 are under graduates. There are nearly 550 faculty members with a ratio of 1:14 (one faculty for every 14 students). The institute wants to make it 1:12 in the next five years, he said.
Ramamoorthy said that he was relieved with the National Green Tribunal today giving a favourable decision to the institute on a case relating to alleged felling of trees in the campus. “We lost nearly nine months in infrastructure building due to the case,” he said.
The green cover of the institute increased from to 70 per cent in 2013 from 21.6 per cent in 1965, he said.
Last March, an environmental activist told the Tribunal that over 8,000 trees on more than 50 acres of forests were cleared between 2001 and 2013 without any statutory permission from authorities to take out the construction activity. This was refuted by the institute.
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