Plan to expand IIT-Madras infrastructure

Updated on: Sunday, August 01, 2010

A detailed master plan for Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) campus to create infrastructure sufficient to increase student strength mandated by the Centre will be ready by August, M.S. Ananth, Director, IIT-M, has stated in his annual report.

All structures under the plan will have features of “green buildings,†and the techniques and materials used had been chosen based on requirements of such buildings. Aerocon blocks, fly ash bricks, reflective paint on the roof, glass windows for natural light will be some of the features of the new buildings.

The plan, being prepared by a professional architecture consultant, would earmark areas for development in hostel, residential and academic zones and will also include infrastructure necessary such as roads, bicycle tracks, water supply, drainage and sewage yards.

Some of the new structures proposed in the plan would be taken up by end of 2010, the report said.

A new auditorium with 1,000 seats and related infrastructure, new hostel buildings for 800 boys and 540 girls and an addition of 1,000 to the existing seating capacity in the mega mess would be taken up soon.

At the same time, the footprint area within the covered enclosures would see “very little increase†to minimise disturbance to wildlife on the campus, the report said, noting that black buck population had increased from 13 to 22 in the last four years.

The report also pointed to a student study of the electrical consumption pattern on the campus, which had shown that hostels and departments accounted for 17 per cent and 40 per cent of the total. Hostels with high consumption levels had been identified and a project team formed to develop technological solutions for sustainable energy consumption.

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