In next 10 years we want to see IIT Roorkee among top 100 Universities: Prof K K Pant

Professor Kamal Kishore Pant, the new director of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in a freewheeling conversation with Shiksha.com shares his vision for the institute, how he plans to improve ranking of IIT Roorkee, generate funds from various sources and start new centres.

Q. IIT Roorkee has completed 175 years recently, what are the key milestones of the past 175 years according to you?

A. If you look at the journey of this institution which started in 1847 it had only one department that was Civil Engineering, with a limited number of students. Gradually it grew and became the University of Roorkee and in the year 2001, it was granted the status of an IIT. Over the year a lot of infrastructure developments have taken place and several branches of science and engineering were added depending on local and national needs.

Some of the departments that have come up at IIT Roorkee are nowhere else and have contributed immensely to the country, like the Earthquake Engineering department, Hydrology department, multiple departments working on water research and recently we have started the School of Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning, Centre on Data Science, we have also started centre on Space Science and Technology.

So, looking at the 175-year journey of IIT Roorkee now it has 23 departments, seven centres and several schools there are 9500 students on the campus and every year around 300 PhD students graduate from our campus.

Q. Some of the IITs are planning to set up campuses outside India, Does IIT Roorkee also has some plans in this regard?

A. We are ready to set up campuses outside India, but, it also depends on the Ministry of Education and once we get approval we might move out. We are currently starting an M.Tech programme with the University of Taiwan and in future, we might open our own campus there.

Q. Kindly tell us about some of the new courses is planning to launch in various domains.

A. We have a long-term vision and we are planning for 2047 when India will be completing 100 years of Independence, and IIT Roorkee will be completing 200 years of existence. We are working to create some centres where we can improve upon traditional knowledge systems. We would also like to start centres around future challenges that the country will face be it environment, sustainability and so on.

Q. How do you look at the role of IITs in changing times with NEP also advocating multidisciplinary institutions?

A. IITs are already moving in that direction and departments of humanities, management, and social sciences also. We are now in the process of curriculum revision, our departments are also working on developing policies for implementing provisions of the NEP 2020.

Normally a B.Tech course is 160 credits, in the curriculum revision we are looking at how these credits can be divided for the overall development of a student. We are planning to move away from booking learning as information is available online, we want to bring in experiential learning where students interact with their faculty, and engage with them more.

We are also exploring multiple entry and exit options, we are already working on Academic Bank of Credit, increasing interactions with the industry so that students learn the problems and solve them.

Q. Would like to understand some of the important collaborations your institute has with other academic institutions in India and abroad?

A. We have collaborations with several foreign universities, more so in the neighbouring and in Asian region as we feel that given the expertise and skilled manpower we have, we should be helping them. So we have collaborated with Tribhuvan University in Nepal.

We also have collaborations with universities in the USA, Germany, in other parts of Europe as well, in order to have student and faculty exchange, and bilateral research.

We not only have collaborations abroad but we have also collaborations with universities in India and in Uttarakhand.

Q. What steps you are taking for improving the ranking of IIT Roorkee in NIRF and international rankings?

A. In QS Ranking we are at 369 while in NIRF we are at seventh rank in India. We are studying to understand how our ranking can be improved further as we are not looking at our strengths, but we are also analyzing our weaknesses and the areas where we lack. We are looking at parameters like international students, international faculty, fund generation from industry, perception and so on and we want to see IIT Roorkee among the top 100 in the next 10 years and in the top 50 by 2047. 

Q. Revenue from Research, patents and consultancy has grown for some of the IITs like Mumbai and Delhi, how is IIT Roorkee exploring this area?

A. IIT Delhi and Bombay have location advantages, so now we are working on increasing our outreach and so far we have generated Rs 300 crore from consultancy. The industry is also now reaching out to us with its problems and soon we will see an increase in industry consultancy projects coming to IIT Roorkee.

Right now for meeting our expenses, we are mostly dependent on the government, but we have a vision for the next five years during which we want to bring it to the level of 50:50. 

Q. How is IIT Roorkee working on getting endowment funds from alumni and other sources?

A. We have recently started the Mehta School of AI, which is funded by one of our alumni. Last year we got endowment funding of around Rs 10 crore, but we want to take it to Rs 100 crore.

Read more:

• JEE Main 2023: NCPCR writes to NTA requesting Exam postponement on ‘humanitarian grounds'
• CUET 2023: UGC announces Application process, Exam, Result dates for UG, PG Exams