In order to gradually turn itself into a non-residential campus, the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D), is in talks with residents of nearby areas, including Jia Sarai and Katwaria Sarai, to accommodate its students there. The administration wants at least 50 per cent of its postgraduate students to live outside the campus from the next academic session.
At present, most IIT-D students, including those pursuing B.Tech, M.Tech, and PhD, live on the campus. Even if students are Delhi residents, they get a hostel room, so that they can stay back for late night assignments and activities. The institute, however, slowly wants to change itself in to a non-residential campus to improve its infrastructure and academic facilities.
In the upcoming academic session, the administration has decided to put up around half of its M.Tech students in areas within 5 km radius of the institution. Currently, nearly 10,000 students study in IIT-D and almost all of them live on the campus.
“The campus is overburdened with the strength of residential students. That is why we want to turn ourselves into a non-residential campus,” IIT-D Director Professor V Ramgopal Rao said.
He added: “If we want to compete with world class institutions, we have to expand our strength to at least 40,000 students. With that kind of strength, we cannot have all the students living on the campus. In other major universities also, only 10 per cent of the students stay on campus.”
For the purpose, the administration has asked locals from nearby areas to provide them with a list of possible accommodations, and the information will be shared with students. The institution does not want to keep BTech students out of the campus because of their young age, while PhD students have to stay on the campus because of the nature of their work. So, to start with, only M.Tech students will have take accommodation out of the campus.
“This will also give us a chance to renovate the hostel buildings, which are very old and in need of urgent repair,” a senior official said. The institute has sought Rs 300 crore from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) under Project Vishwajeet, the central government initiative to develop IITs, for the renovation of its hostels.
