Union Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’. File photo

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 29

Dr BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar (NITJ) on Tuesday held two events – inauguration of two buildings, including academic building and student welfare centre, and foundation stone laying ceremony of mega girls’ hostel-phase II and mega boys hostel block ‘E’. Both the events were held online by the Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.

Pokhriyal did the virtual inauguration and laid the foundation stone in the presence of Madan Mohan, ADG, Ministry of Education, SC Ralhan (chairman BoG, NIT Jalandhar), Prof LK Awasthi (director, NIT Jalandhar), and other dignitaries.

On the occasion, he congratulated Prof Awasthi for NIRF ranking wherein the institute has been placed 52nd among more than 16,400 institutions, including IIT, IIM and others. He encouraged the students to focus on patent than package, start-ups than job seekers, becoming leaders than followers and assured that the Ministry of Education would provide all the necessary support for making the education accessible to a common man. He said that all the efforts were done by NIT Jalandhar in contributing to ‘Atam Nirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’ vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. RC Rehlan appreciated the implementation of EWS reservation at NITJ resulting in enrolment of about 1,100 students at the graduation level in the institute, and 650 more students at the postgraduation level, including MTech/MSc/ MBA.

Prof Awasthi, during his address spoke about the accomplishments of the institute and the challenges faced due to the expansion of the institute. “The institute has started two new UG programmes (BTech in Information Technology and BTech in Electrical Engineering); six new MTech programmes including MTech programme on renewable energy; 10 PG diploma courses in engineering programmes from this academic session. The significant expansion of 750 students per year demands facilities for additional space in hostels, academic area and recreational activities. Therefore, the institute is coming up with one boys’ and one girls’ hostels of seating capacity of 918 and 996, respectively, with the support of Ministry of Education.”

Talking about future expansions, the professor announced the establishment of a new lecture theatre complex comprising of 15 lecture rooms.