IIT-Kharagpur gets new director

After a gap of almost one year, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur today received a new director.

"Partha Pratim Chakraborty has taken charge as a director of the institute after the convocation," former acting director S K Som announced here.

Speaking to reporters, Chakraborty said the board would chart out a five year road-map with priority focus continuing in research.

Speaking about the proposed medical education at IIT-Kharagpur, Chakraborty said the institute was looking into issues like amendment of the IIT Act to incorporate medical education.

Som said that the institute was also trying to get the course approval from the Medical Council of India and it might help in avoiding the amendment, which would be a time-taking affair.

At the same time the premier institute management was looking forward to begin the first phase of construction of the 400-bed super speciality hospital from October which would cost around Rs 230 crore.

"We gave project management contract to HCC and we hope to begin construction from October. It will take another two years to complete," Som said.

"So, we will be able to begin medical course from 2016-17 session," he said.

"IIT-Kharagpur has tied up with international institutions like John Hopkins of USA and Imperial college in England. There are domestic collaborations like with Tata Cancer Center Kolkata," he said.

In order to focus on research, the institute has decided to increase the research student intake to 20 per cent from 10 per cent now over the next five years and eventually to 30 per cent.

Chakraborty said in order to strengthen the faculty, a recruitment drive has begun but there continued to be a dearth of quality faculty.

According to the guidelines, IIT-Kharagpur would require 1000 faculty from the current 560. now.

At the convocation IIT-Kharagpur offered degrees to its students and Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) to Arun Sarin in recognition of being the doyen of telecommunication industry and his contributions to Vodafone and to Y C Deveshwar for his leadership in ITC.