The Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi may soon start undergraduate courses in humanities and other streams. Speaking at a press conference organised by the institute on the occasion of its 41st Convocation, the director Prof Surendra Prasad said that the institute is working on HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s idea of introducing UG courses related to fields apart from sciences. He said, “We do not have anything to show you now. But the work on these new courses is on. And one year down the line we can come up with something.”  Some of the IITs are already running courses in MBA.

The institute, which will celebrate its its fiftieth anniversary this month, has also initiated a High Impact Research this year. Under this, selected projects by students would receive seed funding of up to Rs 1 crore each over a period of five years. A large number of collaborative research projects have been initiated with international partners.

Like other IITs, IIT Delhi too was facing faculty crunch due to the sturdy increase in student enrollment after the implementation of the reservation. But the institute has recruited 42 teachers this year, out of whom 35 have already joined.

Prof Surendra Prasad said, “The biggest challenge is that not many students are taking up research like 15 years ago. We could always depend on those students whenever we required faculty but that pool has shrunk now. So, there were difficulties but we too were rigorous in selecting the faculty.”