Mumbai: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) is set to undergo a massive infrastructure transformation in the coming years, with plans to almost double its campus area and enhance its facilities. The institute has announced that it will expand its campus from 9,000 square metres to 16,000 square metres, allowing for the construction of new academic centres, research facilities, and housing options for students as well as staff.
This ambitious project will provide IIT Bombay with the space and resources necessary to accommodate its growing student body and foster a thriving academic environment. The expansion, worth over Rs2,000 crores, will include the construction of additional hostel rooms, state-of-the-art teaching laboratories, and modern academic buildings, among others.
“The proposal to enhance the infrastructure has already been approved by the Union Environment Ministry and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC),” informed Shireesh Kedare, the Director of IIT-B.
“Currently there are 12,000 hostel rooms to accommodate 13,600 who are enrolled in IIT-B. With construction of new hostels, the institute will have 16,000 rooms to accommodate students in the campus in next two to three years,” said K V Krishna Rao, the Deputy Director of Finance and External Affairs at the Institute. He further informed that new laboratories will also be made, while academic buildings will be 45 metre high. The teaching labs will also be improved to provide better facilities to the students.
‘Innovative teaching methods’
Recognising the importance of effective teaching methodologies, IIT-B is also planning to transform its classrooms into dynamic learning environments. The institute aims to shift away from traditional lecture-based formats and adopt more interactive and engaging approaches.
“Mostly, students only take learning as a method to pass examinations. But we want to make sure that students enjoy learning. We want to shift more towards activity-based learning where not just the professors talk and students listen, but students participate in discussions so that it becomes exciting for them to think on their own. We want to move towards a flip classroom model,” explained Kedare.
Emphasis on research
IIT-B, one of the eight public Institutes of Excellence (IoE), said it has spent over 50% of its IoE budget for procuring research equipment. “Out of Rs1,000 crore that the institute received after being declared an IoE, we have spent over Rs500 crores to procure equipments like Cryo-Electron Microscope, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrometer, Liquid Helium Facility, and a High Performance Computation Facility, among others,” said Milind Atrey, the Deputy Director - ART (Academics, Research and Translation) of IIT Bombay.
These equipment, the institute said, will be made available for other institutes in Maharashtra as well as the industry for research purposes "at a nominal cost”, he added. By facilitating knowledge sharing and innovation, IIT Bombay aims to contribute to the overall scientific and technological advancement of the region.
Additionally, the institute also expects the research quality to further improve with more post-doctoral fellows joining IIT-B. "When we started ten years ago, we were not even able to fill the 25 seats. But today, we have 500 post-doc fellows on campus," informed Neela Natraj, Dean of Faculty affairs at the institute. With more students coming, IIT-B believes that the quality of the cutting-edge research that the institute carries will only further improve.
IIT-B reviewed
These announcements come on the back of a report from a high-level review committee for the period of 2018 to 2024. The comprehensive review was conducted in two stages: a detailed examination of individual academic units in 2023 by specialised external committees, followed by a broader assessment of the institution's overall progress by a distinguished panel of experts from India and abroad in February 2024.
While the committee appreciated IIT-B's global ranking improvement (47 in engineering, 149 overall in 2024 QS rankings), increase in student population with more female representation, new academic programs and research centres, it also pointed out infrastructure strain due to rapid growth.
The report also suggested a need for improved faculty recruitment and mental health support, digital transformation with a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, industry collaboration, and international partnerships for the institute to rank within 50 in the subsequent QS rankings.
