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A new four-year undergraduate programme in economics would be started at the Indian institute of Technology, Bombay from this July onwards. Depending upon the decision of the senate if the programme is approved then the initial intake would be of 30 students.
The institute’s director Mr. Devang V Khakhar stated that there is no dearth of qualified faculty in economics at the institute and if the need so arises they can easily draw from the Sailesh J Mehta School of Management. He said,” We have a huge faculty in economics as we have a big economics programme with 34 faculty members. So, faculty is not an issue for beginning the programme.”
The selection of the students would be done on the basis of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for engineering. The fee charged would be the same as for the BTech programme and that is Rs 90,000 a year.
IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Kanpur already have a similar programme in operation since years and have seen a good intake. A professor from IIT-Bombay stated that an economics programme was in high demand at the IITs and also among the companies that come here for placements.
Mr. Vimal Kumar, convenor, economics discipline, IIT-Kanpur said,” Economics is no longer a liberal arts subject. It has acquired the characteristics of a science and engineering discipline. The regular intake in the economics programme at the institute is 40 that is considered a successful one. Mr. Kumar further added,” If you look at the industry, they want people who can use economics well and analyse numbers. Our students of economics get as good placements as our engineering students.”
Various programmes in humanities, arts and social sciences are offered at the new IITs at Patna, Gandhinagar and Mandi.
