Top College in Maharashtra

Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Pune, starting from June 2016, will be met by the College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP).
The college will be the mentor institute for IIIT, Pune which was announced last year by the Union government to provide undergraduate and postgraduate education in information technology, management, design and manufacturing in IT.

CoEP director B B Ahuja confirmed the support. "We will extend all the support to start the IIIT in Pune. With our vast experience and resources, we are hopeful that we will be able to build a strong foundation for the institute," he added.

The campus will come up on a 100-acre plot in Chakan. For the first year, classes will be held at Siddhant College of Engineering on Talegaon-Chakan Road. Some facilities from CoEP would be used till the campus becomes self-sustained.

The Union government had signed a memorandum of understanding last December with the state government and the industry partners for two IIITs, one in Pune and the other in Nagpur, to be set up on public-private partnership. The industry partners, Mumbai-based Hubtown and Roltas, have agreed to develop the curriculum suitable for the IT industry for the institute.

The 100-acre land in Chakan will soon be taken up for development of the IIIT campus. By next week, the fencing will be completed and the budget would be submitted to the Union government for approval. The architectural plan for the campus is being prepared, Nandanwar added.

The Pune and Nagpur projects are part of the 20 new IIITs being set up across the country in phases between 2011-12 and 2019-20 by the HRD ministry on a not-for-profit PPP mode.

These institutes are the ideas of National Association of Software and Services Company (Nasscom) which mooted the idea of dedicated research-based institutes catering to the human resource required by industries in 2008.

The Course

The admission process for IIIT, Pune will begin from this June, through the joint entrance examination (JEE). Initially, there will be two branches -- computer science and engineering and electronics and telecommunication with a capacity of 60 students each. Each course will be for four years. The industry partners Hubtown and Roltas have agreed to develop the curriculum suitable to the IT industry.

The IIIT will have 50% investment from the Union government, 35% from the state government and 15% from industrial partnership. A total of Rs 128 crore will be invested in setting up of the institute.

For students

-- IIIT, Pune will temporarily function from Siddhant Engineering College and a permanent campus will be constructed in Chakan

-- The institute will start functioning under the mentorship of the CoEP and 120 students will be admitted in 2016