IIT-R to offer B.Tech in high-speed railway engineering

At a time when Indian Government is planning for high-speed train here is a good news as IIT Roorkee is set to offer a new course on railway engineering from the next academic session. This for the first time such courses are to be offered in the country.

At present IIT-R runs 12 undergraduate programmes that award a BTech or BArch degree and 16 postgraduate programmes in different disciplines of engineering and sciences apart from various integrated diploma and Ph.D. programmes.

The institute has in the past introduced courses such as BTech (Engineering Physics) and MSc (Economics) in their curriculum.

IIT-R officials said that the course will focus on the complexities of high-speed trains which Indian Railways is planning to introduce in the country.

The institute would be the first among IITs to offer a BTech programme in the field of high-speed railway engineering at undergraduate level.

IIT-Kharagpur has already introduced an MTech degree in railway engineering from the 2015-16 academic session.

Institute authorities have sent a proposal to different departments to gather feedback over the introduction of the two new courses.

"We have had a long association with Indian Railways. We have supplied railway technology, engineers, and administrators from the institute and have a centre dedicated to railway research here," said a high-ranking official of the Institute.

"We have decided to cater to this area of high-speed trains through our expertise and manpower, another undergraduate programme BTech (Aeronautical Engineering) is also being planned for the 2017-18 academic session. We have started work in this direction," he added.

"After getting feedback from various departments over the feasibility of both the courses, we will seek approval to start them. For the four-year programmes only students who qualify the IIT-JEE exam in 2017 will be admitted," he added further.