Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurates academic complex at IIT Bhubaneswar

NEW DELHI: The Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan today inaugurated the Pushpagiri Lecture Hall Complex and Rushikulya Hall of Residence at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar.

The government has so far sanctioned Rs 1,260 crores for creating the institute's infrastructure in two phases. This new infrastructure will include a modern lecture hall with a floor area of 26,354 square meters at a cost of Rs 148 crore.

Right now the lecture hall complex comprises three types of lecture halls in terms of capacity or number of people it can accommodate.

As the institute grows, another three buildings can be added to complete the circular formation that the complex has. The first building is now ready to function and a part of the complex which is under construction right now is a mini-complex which has 10 flipped classrooms.

The 800-single seated hostel in Rushikulya hall of residence has an extremely good atmosphere. The institute said that the complex maintains high standards which are at par with international standards.

IIT Bhubaneswar director Raja Kumar said, “Education minister has always been very supportive, visited the campus on numerous occasions and we are all encouraged and feel privileged to have him gracing the campus physically and spending some time interacting with the faculty staff and students”.

“The lecture halls are designed to be of new age and serve as e-classrooms wherein live streaming of lectures with interaction can be done with lecture recording facility and can be used for conventional classes. The lecture halls are designed to work with air-conditioning as well as natural ventilation during the winter months,” the director added.

The lecture halls provide electrical connections for charging of laptops, internet access through WiFi, document visualizers for board work, apart from whiteboards, CCTV surveillance etc. The central atrium of each of the buildings has a lot of interactive space for students.

“The flipped classroom complex is one of the foremost in the country and it can be used for conventional lectures, group tasks / individual work consisting of study/browsing, design, analysis, problem solving, assignment, and interacting with teachers,” he said.

The director further said, “We named the lecture hall complex taking inspiration from the historical Pushpagiri University which thrived with students coming from other countries in this very land, as long back as in the first few centuries AD Rushikulya hall has been named considering the local river Rushikulya whose mouth is famous for Olive Ridley nesting.”

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