Still in infancy, facing staff crunch

IIT Jodhpur:

IIT Jodhpur started its operations in 2008. For initial two years the institute was attached with IIT Kanpur and was later shifted to Jodhpur in 2010.  

Presently, the institute is functioning in a transit campus in MBM Engineering College affiliated to Jodhpur’s Jai Narayan Vyas University. Around 800 acres of land on Jodhpur-Nagaur highway was allotted to the institute for its permanent residential campus. But the institute could not commence the construction work due to delay in environment clearance and other sanctions from Union Government.

“We received environment clearance in February 2014. Immediately, we started construction work. We have taken possession of land and construction of boundary wall has been completed. By July 2016, IIT Jodhpur will be completely shifted to its permanent campus,” said Amandeep Kumar, deputy registrar, IIT Jodhpur.

Crunch of faculty members is another problem. The institute is short of 37 faculty members against the sanctioned strength of 90.  Battling hard with acute vacancy, IIT-Jodhpur has now decided to encourage new faculty recruits by offering a start-up salary of Rs 25 lakh.  Nearly two dozen faculty members have quit in the last two years and till two months ago, it had no faculty member in the professor rank. Retention of students after the counselling session is also a major task for the institute.  The intake capacity of institute is of 160 but some do not turn up leading to a small percentage of seats going vacant every year.

IIM Udaipur:

IIM Udaipur became operational in 2011 in a temporary campus located at the Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur. State government gave 253 acre land to the institute in the Balicha area for building the permanent residential campus. Sources in the IIM Udaipur informed that due to some legal issues, the institute could not commence the construction work so far. However, officials at the IIM claim that construction will start soon and the institute will be shifted to its permanent campus in the next two years.

Like IIT, IIM Udaipur too is battling the problem of faculty crunch which is evident from the fact that it has only 25 permanent faculty members. Around 70 per cent of courses in second year of under-graduate programme are covered by visiting faculties from Bangalore and Ahmadabad IIMs. 

The intake capacity of the institute is of 110-120 students. The average placement of the institute has been of Rs 10.23 lakhs. Sources say it is running to full capacity and more programmes will be introduced in the coming years.