Punjab's Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is all set to begin operations from Ropar after completing its first-year classes from its previous transit campus at IIT Delhi.

With M K Surappa taking over as the first regular director of IIT Ropar, classes for the new academic session will begin from another transit campus created at Government Polytechnic Institute in Ropar.

All 120 students on the rolls, including 40 each from three different streams of the four-year B Tech programme in Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering will shift to Ropar when the new academic session gets underway in July, an official spokesperson told Newsline.

Besides existing students, the new students admitted to IIT Ropar will continue attending classes at Government Polytechnic Institute till the permanent IIT campus comes up over 513 acres land allotted on the banks of Sutlej river.

Undertaken by Central PWD, North Zone, Chandigarh, the construction of the new IIT campus had been underway since February 24 when former Union Minister of Human Resource Development Arjun Singh and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had jointly laid the foundation stone of the prestigious project in Ropar.

To accommodate the IIT campus, new admissions to the Ropar Polytechnic had been suspended since last year and the remaining batch of its 150 students had been given an option to shift to any other polytechnic of their choice in the state from the next session, disclosed Principal Secretary, Technical Education and Industrial Training, Punjab, Tejinder Kaur.

Punjab IIT, which is among the six new IITs coming up across the country, offers 27 per cent OBC reservation in most sought-after branches of electronics, computer science and mechanical engineering.

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