Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, the country’s first IIT, is undertaking a Rs 1,000-crore infrastructure overhaul to modernise its 75-year-old campus, with new residential, academic, research, wellness and student activity spaces planned over the next few years.
Unveiling the vision during the institute’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations on Wednesday, IIT Kharagpur Director Suman Chakraborty said the campus needed to evolve to support the institute’s ambitions for the next phase of its growth, as per a statement.
The director outlined a five-pillar roadmap for the institute’s next 75 years — people first; Education 5.0; innovation and enterprise; frontier convergence in healthcare and affordable deep tech; and infrastructure and the campus as a living laboratory.
The institute highlighted the selection of 216 faculty members and recruitment of 123 employees, along with plans to bring more than 300 postdoctoral fellows to the campus within six months. It also announced initiatives such as the Research Excellence Support Bank, Faculty Research Launch Credit and Staff Development Fund.
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On student wellbeing, IIT Kharagpur proposed a Rs 43.38-crore SETU Wellness Centre spread across 5,345 square metres. The facility is expected to be supported by the SETU app, round-the-clock psychiatric care, faculty mentors and hall-level wellness volunteers.
The institute also plans to introduce an Intra-IIT Student Mobility Grid, double majors and new admission pathways through ScOpE and Sports Excellence. The KRITI initiative will provide school students and young innovators with early exposure to frontier laboratories.
Other academic initiatives include online programmes such as Data Science in Bangla and an initiative aimed at empowering one lakh women across sectors.
Moreover, the institute also announced a strengthened innovation and entrepreneurship framework, including an Innovation-Centric PhD programme and the IIT Kharagpur-Arc180 Innovation Fellows to PhD pathway. The initiatives are aimed at strengthening links between research, intellectual property, startups, venture creation and industry.
Several new centres and research initiatives were also highlighted, including the Centre of Excellence for Quantitative Genomic Analytics and Applied Theranostics, Centre of Excellence for AI in Education and Skilling for Next Generation Entrepreneurship, Vikram Sodhi Centre of Excellence for AI-Enabled Geological and Mining Systems, CATER (Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence Technology for Education, Research and Knowledge Systems), Imagination Laboratory and the Centre of Excellence for Future-Ready AI Infrastructure.
IIT Kharagpur further outlined plans for an Outreach Course Network involving partnerships with more than 200 colleges, as well as strategic outreach centres in Houston and Dubai. International initiatives include Study Bharat, a first dual-award PhD cohort with the University of Manchester and a dual doctorate initiative with the University of Bordeaux.
