Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
BHEL facility to be used in case admissions are started this year itself

Tiruchi: The National Institute of Technology – Tiruchi (NIT-T) has received a letter from the Ministry of Human Resource Development asking for provision of minimum infrastructure facilities for temporary functioning of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) proposed for Tiruchi in the Eleventh Plan period.

The communication indicated the MHRD’s plans to admit 140 students through CAT examinations, but the year has not been mentioned. “In deference to a request for hostel accommodation of the students of the new IIM made by an official team that visited recently, we have assured to provide it after obtaining the approval of our Board of Governors. The additional request for providing classrooms could be fulfilled only next year since the institute has to accommodate about 900 new students this year, owing to the additional intake as per OBC reservation norms,” Institute Director M. Chidambaram said.

The IIM being a Central Government institution, the MHRD’s expectation of NIT-T’s support is stated to be obvious.

Precedent
Also, there has been a precedent. The IIM-Kozhikode started functioning from the campus of NIT-Calicut before moving to its own campus.

In case the Ministry decides to admit students to the new IIM from the current year, the facility that the BHEL, Tiruchi, had earlier accepted to provide will be utilised for classrooms, it is learnt.

Besides Tamil Nadu, new IIMs have been approved for six other States: Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Haryana, in the Eleventh Plan period.

Mentoring
Each of the new IIMs are to receive mentoring support from an existing IIM. The one in Tiruchi is likely to be provided such a support by IIM-Kozhikode, sources said.