Batch of '82 gives Rs 4 cr to IIT-B

The batch of 1982 of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay handed over a cheque of Rs 4 crore to the premier engineering institute. The money will be used to bring in more talent into the faculty. With the interest earned on the corpus, every year 25 incoming faculty members at IIT-B will be offered a bonus of Rs 1 lakh for three years.The batch, having decided to raise Rs 6 crore in all, plans to mobilise the remaining Rs 2 crore and give it to IIT-B for its Legacy Project in 2008. Each year, the Legacy Project sees alumni celebrating its silver jubilee reunion by pledging to take up a project for the institute.This initiative was announced earlier this year at a New York alumni meet when director Ashok Misra and senior faculty members including Deepak Phatak, professor at IIT's Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, visited the US to whip up enthusiasm among NRI ex-students for the ongoing IIT-B golden jubilee celebrations.