Nagpur: Laxminarayan Institute of Technology (LIT) which is part of the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) is now Laxminarayan Innovation Technological University (LITU), in consonance with the National Education Policy2020 and the policies of the State Government to create Centres of Excellence in niche areas to promote research, innovation, infrastructure and incubation for overall growth of the State.
The State has a long history of creating new universities by bifurcating existing well-established universities. Some of the original universities meanwhile underwent name changes, including expansion of original names to honour well-known social reformers, poets and saints. Very recently the College of Engineering Pune (COEP), a government college (Autonomous), was carved out of the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) into a separate State University.
The Departments of Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Rajiv Gandhi Biotechnology Centre run M Sc courses and PhD research programmes are under the administrative and academic control of the RTMNU. However, as per MOU, these will now be part of the LIT University. These departments were established on the LIT campus.
The proposed LIT University has planned to start a B Tech course in Pharmaceutical Engineering. In addition to Chemical Engineering subjects, this course includes courses from Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Bio-Technology streams, for example, Pharmaceutical and Biochemistry Analysis, Chemistry of Natural Products, Medicinal Natural Products Laboratory, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Biotechnology Laboratory, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics, Drug Metabolism, Molecular Biology, and Clinical Research Management.
LIAAA office-bearers Madhav Labhe, Ajay Deshpande and Advisor Mohan Pande have expressed happiness over the new development.
