The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur is likely to roll out its MBBS programme from the 2021-2022 academic session, with an initial intake capacity of 50 students in the first year, reports Times of India.

The premier institute is also set to start OPD services in its 400-bed Dr B C Roy superspecialty hospital by the end of the year.

“We plan to start the OPD services this year. By early next year, we plan to start the indoor facilities in the first phase with 400 beds. Once the hospital is operational, we plan to roll out the MBBS curriculum as per MCI guidelines.” said Professor Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, the officiating director of the institute.

“The plan in the second phase is to scale it up to a 750-bed hospital and increase the intake capacity to 100 MBBS students,” Bhattacharyya added.

He said that IIT Kharapur will award the MBBS, post graduate degrees and will also draw the curriculum besides managing the academic affairs. The day-to-day hospital management will be run by a special purpose vehicle, he said.

Satadal Saha, project director of the hospital, said that the intention behind the move is to create and entire ecosystem with a nursing college and a school to train paramedical and technical experts. The institute has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

IIT Kharagpur had been exploring this idea since 2000 and had set up the School of Medical Science and Technology in 2001 to prepare researchers, who would fuse engineering with medicine, he indicated.