VTU to start 180 crore Visvesvaraya Institute of Advanced Technologies (VIAT), an exclusive graduate school offering cutting-edge research-incentive programmes
Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.
In the 17 years of its existence, one of India’s largest technical universities — Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) — hasn’t had a constituent institute to call its own.
Come August, the Belgaum-headquartered university with nearly 180 affiliated engineering colleges, will start Visvesvaraya Institute of Advanced Technologies (VIAT), an exclusive graduate school offering cutting-edge research-incentive programmes.
To be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 180-crore, VIAT will be located on a 200-acre campus at Muddenahalli, birthplace of Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya. In the maiden year, VIAT will offer MTech programmes in at least five areas at four campuses in Bangalore, Mysore, Gulbarga and Belgaum.
"VIAT will be designed on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science. Some of the programmes we have drawn up are exclusive to the institute; no engineering college in the state is currently offering them," says VTU vice-chancellor H Maheshappa.
All four campuses of the proposed institute will have a dedicated centre specializing in a chosen area. IT capital Bangalore will house Centre for C3 Technologies — Control, Communication and Computation. Centre for Materials and Manufacturing Technologies will come up in Mysore and Centre for Engery and Environmental Technologies will be housed at the Gulbarga campus. At Belgaum, the Centre for Resources and Geosystems Technology will be set up.
… "To ensure quality research, we have designed a new model of autonomy for VIAT. While a full time director will look after the overall affairs of the institute, each centre will have a research council headed by an eminent scientist or a technocrat," adds Maheshappa.
WHAT’S ON OFFER
* Bangalore (Muddenahalli) campus: MTech in cyberphysical systems, biomedical engineering and biotechnology
* Mysore campus: MTech in advanced engineering materials and advanced manufacturing technologies
* Gulbarga campus: MTech in energy and environmental engineering, renewable energy engineering and management and energy and sustainable development.
* Belgaum campus: MTech in water resources engineering and management and geosystems engineering
When BPUT, Rourkela was formed there were plans for 5 institutes under BPUT. I am not sure what the status of those proposed institutes are. I think 1-2 of them started in BPUT’s constituent colleges. But I could not find any information in BPUT’s website. Perhaps BPUT can borrow some ideas from VTU and establish similar centers.
January 27th, 2011