IIT Delhi will soon have a second home — in Haryana

The move will help the institute tide over shortage of space on campus. At present,IIT-D has the highest student strength among all IITs and operates from the smallest campus.

“We have 300 acres here,of which about 250 acres is functional. The rest is forest area,” Prasad said.

Earlier,New York City had made an offer to IIT-D to set up a campus there,but the institute’s administration said they wanted to expand in India first before looking at overseas options. The NYC offer has been taken up by IIT-Bombay.

There is also a proposal for an International Institute of Technology by the Mauritius government. “That will have to be a joint effort of all the IITs. No individual IIT has that kind of resources,” Prasad said.

The Haryana project is at a preliminary stage at the moment.

Deputy Director Balakrishnan said land would be allotted in six months and the blueprint could also be ready. “We also need to find the funding to build research facilities there,” he said.

The funding for the expansion,he said,will have to be generated by IIT-D itself,as this will not be an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The institute completes 50 years on August 16 and is holding its 42nd convocation on Saturday.

A total of 1,493 students will be awarded degrees. Five distinguished alumni will also be awarded at the function — Prof D P Agarwal,chairman of UPSC; Ashok Belani,Executive VP of Schlumberger Ltd; Patanjali Keswani,Chairman and MD of Lemon Tree and Red Fox hotels; Dr Anant Jhingran,VP and CTO of Information at IBM Corporation; and Prof Dinesh Manocha of University of Carolina.