Hyderabad, Oct 10 (IANS) The National Institute of Technology, Warangal, ranked among the top 10 technology institutes in the country, will upgrade its facilities at a cost of Rs.1 billion, it was announced Friday.The institute, which is celebrating its golden jubilee, plans to establish state of the art e-class rooms, interactive lecture halls and new academic halls over the next two years.

It proposes to create a new state-of-the-art lecture hall complex for 3,000 students, a 1,600-bed ultra-modern hostel and a 350-bed girls’ hostel in the coming year, institute director Y.V. Rao told reporters in Warangal. The institute was targeting a student strength of 5,000 by the end of the 11th plan (2012), he added.

Currently, the institute has 3,000 students and over 200 teachers. It offers a four-year B.Tech degree in eight engineering disciplines and two-year M.Tech programmes in 23 specializations across the eight engineering departments. The institute also offers an MBA exclusively for engineering graduates, as also MCA, M.Sc (Tech) and Ph.D programmes.

India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had laid foundation stone of the Regional Engineering College (REC), Warangal, on Oct 10, 1959. It was one of the RECs set up across the country for technical advancement and promotion of national integration.

It was jointly funded and managed by the central and state governments till 2003 when the ministry of human resources development decided to take over all the RECs, rename them as National Institutes of Technology and convert them into deemed universities.