Kharagpur, Jan 26 (IANS): The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) on Thursday sanctioned a grant of Rs 456 crore for IIT-Kharagpur and three other IITs for developmental projects.

In a tweet, the HRD Ministry has confirmed approval of a total grant of Rs 456.10 crore as one-time additional capital funding for IIT-Kharagpur and three other IITs.

The funding has been earmarked for lab infrastructure, equipment, etc.

As per the ministry's announcement, Rs 151.19 crore has been earmarked for IIT-Kharagpur, followed by Rs 105 crore for IIT-Delhi, Rs 103.41 crore for IIT-Madras and Rs 96.5 crore for IIT-Bombay.

The funding was approved based on proposals submitted by older IITs for augmentation of infrastructure and facilities for holistic excellence.

"IIT-Kharagpur has been focusing towards attracting young talented academicians and post-doctoral fellows from across the world. For this, we need, on one hand, world-class laboratories, high-end equipment to conduct cutting-edge research, and on the other hand, quality living experience such as accommodation facilities.

"Our proposal significantly highlighted this aspect and we aim to use this additional funding towards building these facilities," said IIT-Kharagpur Director Partha Pratim Chakrabarti.

The Institute has already drawn the blueprints to build lab infrastructure of global standard and acquire equipment for technological convergence domains like manufacturing, transportation, VLSI design, cloud computing, smart infrastructure and affordable healthcare, among others.

"We will soon undertake a housing project for facilitating international faculty and post-doctoral fellows. We understand the differential need of these people and are committed to offering them the same world-class experience for their limited durational association with us," added Chakrabarti.

A significant part of the funding will also be used to offer challenge grants and equipment for Central Research facility of the Institute, making them accessible to both faculty and students for research work. Students' innovation projects will also receive a major boost through this supplementary funding.

Another aspect which the Institute will be exploring is students' amenities and well-being. The Institute has already earmarked Rs 10 crore for sports activities and infrastructure and undertaken crowdsourced campaigns as well for promoting students' welfare activities.