Flying colours

Mahila Institute of Technology at Kashmere Gate, a constituent college of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University was much in news six months ago, but for all the wrong reasons.
Unhappy with the functioning of the institute, which was directly under the Delhi government at that time, the students of the institute successfully agitated for bringing the college under the direct control of GGSIPU.Thereafter, in the last six months significant work has taken place for the betterment of the institute under the guidance of the newly appointed principal, Nupur Prakash. Prakash said: ‘‘Though the institute was established in 1998, there were no permanent faculty members or proper infrastructure before June 2002. Now MIT has 24 faculty members with 12 recent recruits, with no lesser qualification then Masters in Technology." Much work has been done for improvising the overall infrastructure at the college such as, five new labs have been established in the electrical engineering department of the institute apart from the existing five basic labs. New equipments have been procured for upgrading the other labs and internet facility has been provided at the institute.
MIT, which started as an integral part of Delhi College of Engineering, was established with the view to popularising technical education among women. Prakash said: ‘‘MIT is the first exclusive engineering college for women in India. The idea was that the girls are able to blossom better in an all-girls environment and should not get intimidated by the presence of boys. They should develop into having a good individual personality." MIT is offering Bachelor’s in Technology programmes in three areas, electronics and communication engineering; computer science and engineering and mechanical and automation engineering.
She said: "The admission to these courses is open for 10+2 science students through a common entrance test conducted by the GGSIPU. With 85 per cent seats reserved for Delhi candidates, I can say that we are getting the cream of Delhi at MIT."
As a part of the curriculum the students of MIT undergo summer training after three years for six weeks. Prakash added, "In the eighth semester students get live projects from the industry, enabling them to do some meaningful commercial work."
About the recent initiatives at the college, Prakash said: "We have recently got campus-wide network at MIT. In fact, students were involved to provide them hands-on-experience. Our college website (www.ggsip.nic.in/mit/mitmain.htm) was formally launched last week by K K Aggarwal, vice-chancellor, GGSIPU, and it provides detailed information on courses, hostel and library, besides other things. We have ordered software worth Rs 25 lakh for our computer science department. Hostel facility has been revamped and new water coolers, common room, proper telephone service, security guards have been provided for."
Admitting that there is still a long way to go, Prakash said: "We are working towards strengthening our training and placement cell to ensure good placement for our students. Campus-wide network will enable us to go for e-learning. I would like to strengthen the periodicals and general section in the library. Few labs in the mechanical departments need to be equipped better and we would like to develop new labs on Air conditioning/ Refrigeration, Automotive and Meteorology. We are planning to develop sports facilities for students and further promote cultural activities . My benchmark is to reach the standards of Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology."