INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BOMBAY

logo 220px-IITB_Main_Building220px-IITB_Main_Building

IIT Bombay was the second IIT to be established in 1958 with assistance from UNESCO and with funds contributed by the Soviet Union. UNESCO agreed to provide equipment and technical experts mainly from the Soviet Union, while the Government of India accepted the responsibility for all other expenses including the cost of the building project and recurring expenses. The site chosen for the institute was Powai, eighteen miles (29 km) from the city of Mumbai (then Bombay), with an area of 550 acres (2.2 km2) which was given by the then Bombay State Government. While construction was being completed, the first academic session of the Institute opened on 25 July 1958, in its temporary home at the Synthetic and Art Silk Mills Research Association (SASMIRA) building in Worli, Mumbai with 100 students. These students were selected from over 3,400 applicants for admission to the first year undergraduate engineering programmes of Aerospace, Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Engineering Physics, Energy, Mechanical, Metallurgical Engineering and MSc Chemistry. One of the main objectives of establishing the Institute was to develop facilities for studies in a variety of specialised engineering and technological sciences. The need for establishing adequate facilities for postgraduate studies and research was kept uppermost in mind in the founding years.

While the Institute was functioning provisionally at Worli, an effort was made to expedite the progress of the building project at its permanent location and Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the Institute at Powai on 10 March 1959.

Campus[edit]

The Tree of Knowledge – a wrought iron sculpture in the lawns facing the Administrative Building at IIT Bombay

The IIT Bombay campus is located at Powai, a suburb in north eastern Mumbai, between the Vihar and Powai lakes. The campus is divided into clusters of buildings. The academic area chiefly comprises the main building, various departmental annexes and auditoria. All department annexes are connected by a corridor named Infinite Corridor. Beyond the Convocation Hall lie most of the hostels. There are a total of 15 hostels, of which two hostels (Hostels 10 and 11) and a part of the newly constructed hostel (Hostel 15) are for female students.

Due to its proximity to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the campus is yellow and mostly untouched by the pollution of the rest of the city. The proximity of the campus to the national park has also led to occasional sightings of panthers, Leopards and Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) crocodiles along the banks of Lake Powai. Sometimes they stray into the campus in chase of hunt.[8]

See also  K.L. College of Engineering (KLCE)

The institute has two swimming pools; football, hockey and cricket grounds; and tennis, basketball, squash and volleyball courts. It also has a Students’ Activity Center (SAC) for various cultural and other extracurricular activities. In addition to these facilities, the campus also houses two high schools, one of which is a Kendriya Vidyalaya and the other is called IIT Campus School.

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