104 students graduate in IIT Tirupati's first convocation

A total of 103 B.Tech. students and one M.S. degree student graduated in the first convocation of Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, on Tuesday.

The historic occasion also saw Union Minister for Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' inaugurating the Stage 1A transit campus of the IIT.

Stage 1A transit campus will be integrated into the permanent campus, which spans over 530 acres.

The next stage of construction is expected to be completed by the 2021. It will cater to 1,250 students and 120 faculty members.

While the master plan has been prepared for 12,000 students, the Detailed Project Report (DPR) that has been approved envisages construction of a complete campus to cater to 2,500 students, 250 faculty members and 275 staff members and is scheduled for completion by 2024.

Ramesh Pokhriyal, in his convocation address, noted that DPR of IIT Tirupati to build a campus for 2,500 students and the associated faculty and staff has been approved in principle. The cabinet has sanctioned an amount of Rs 1,074 crore for the period up to 2020.

He said he was happy to know that the third generation IITs including IIT Tirupati are growing at a fast pace to stand by the side of other established IITs.

IIT Tirupati, which started functioning from the academic year of 2015-16, currently has 823 students including 582 B.Tech., 118 M.Tech., 10 M.Sc., 32 MS and 81 PhD research students along with 78 faculty and 56 staff members.

It has the highest percentage of female student enrolment (17 per cent) in the B. Tech programme, among all the IITs.

In the graduating batch, 100 per cent of the students secured internship in reputed national and international organisations.

Around 50 companies visited the campus with more than 75 out of 103 students getting placed in core engineering and R&D companies besides in analytics, consulting and finance, and information technology sectors.

Several other students have chosen to pursue higher education in India and abroad.

Ramesh Pokhriyal hoped that all the graduands will join the glorious IITian tradition of being the leaders in their respective fields.

"It is a known fact that IIT graduates are the forerunners of many of the start-ups in our country and abroad. These start-ups of today will grow into the big corporate houses tomorrow and add immensely to our economy," he said.

In spite of the infrastructure constraints of a new institute, IIT Tirupati faculty members have vigorously been involved in academic and sponsored research. During the last three years, faculty and students have published more than 100 papers in reputed national and international journals.

"The faculty members have been granted 29 sponsored research projects amounting to Rs 10.40 crore, and 21 industrial consultancy assignments amounting to Rs 70 lakh. Further, about 20 projects are currently under evaluation with various sponsoring agencies," said K.N. Satyanarayana, Director, IIT Tirupati.

Andhra Pradesh Education Minister Audimulapu Suresh, Tirupati MP, Balli Durga Prasada Rao, Srikalahasti MLA B. Madhusudhana Reddy and Secretary (HE), MHRD, Government of India, R. Subrahmanyam were present.

( With inputs from IANS )