West Bengal’s IIT-Kharagpur would be the first engineering institute in India to venture into medical education. The hospital-cum-medical college, named Dr B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science and Research, is likely to become operational by 2017. The GOI has already sanctioned a grant of Rs 230 crore last year for this purpose. Construction work will start soon and is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

The hospital will have 400 beds in the first phase while another 750 beds will be added gradually. Besides serving the local populace, the hospital will also work on biomedical, clinical and translational research. Drug design and delivery will be other key research areas to which the hospital will contribute.

The hospital is planning to use technologies like remote diagnostics, telemedicine, teleradiology, and expert systems leveraging outreach of cellular network. Also proposed are a paramedic, nursing training facility, biomedical innovation unit and a medical outreach unit. The medical college will award MBBS, MD, MS and DM degrees. But the focus will be on research – specially in biomedical, clinical and translational areas.