BITS authorities had asked for additional land from the State government in February 2015. IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao approved the request here on Saturday.

Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Hyderabad will soon become the largest campus of BITS in the country. While the city campus currently sprawls over 200 acres of land in Shameerpet, the State will soon allocate an additional 75 acres to the institute to facilitate its phase-II expansion plans.

Among the three BITS campuses in the country, the Pilani campus stands on 220 acres and K.K. Birla Goa campus on 180 acres.

BITS authorities had asked for additional land from the State government in February 2015. IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao approved the request here on Saturday.

He laid foundation stone for the second phase of campus development. Mr. Rao also said that the State would develop an education hub centred around Jawaharnagar and Shameerpet, both located on the outskirts of the core city.

“With the coming of the private university bill, the government expects more institutes to set up their base in this hub. Already, BITS and Nalsar University of Law functions out of this area,” Mr. Rao mentioned.

Massive expansion

The coming five years, BITS-H is aiming for a massive increase in student strength, officials said. V.S. Rao, Director, BITS-Hyderabad, told The Hindu , “By 2020, the campus will have 5,300 students as against its current strength of 3,300.” Interestingly, the campus will see a spurt in postgraduate and PhD student intake over and above the increase in undergraduate admissions. Only 50 per cent of 2,000 students who are expected to join in the next five years will take admission in undergraduate courses as the rest of the seats will be for PG and PhD programmes. This would mean that the campus would witness a 200 per cent increase in the number of PhD seats by 2020. At present, TISS-Hyderabad has 200 PhD seats. New research admissions will be made in sciences, engineering and technology, humanities, pharmacy, management and economics, the Director said.

The second phase of campus development that will spread across 10 lakh sq ft will be made at a cost of Rs. 374 crore.