Top Private BT Schools

Private institutions have been offering biotech courses in the last few years and they have been focusing on being closer to the industry. This year's top private school offering biotech programs is Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It is followed by Amity University, Noida in the second position; The Oxford College of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka in the third position; Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, Jharkhand, was ranked fourth; Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, ranked fifth; Arunai Engineering College, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu was sixth; Seedling Academy of Design, Technology and Management & SILAS Jaipur, Rajasthan was seventh; Shree Manibhai Virani & Smt Navalben Virani Science College, Rajkot, Gujarat, was eighth; Acharya Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka, was ranked ninth, and Kamraj College of Engineering & Technology, Virudhnagar, Tamil Nadu, was the tenth ranked private institution. The courses offered is spread across BTech/MTech, MSc, and PhD.

The Entomology Research Institute (ERI), located within the campus of Loyola College, Chennai is a unique center of academic excellence in the country. And it was not considered for the ranking purpose as it is a Special Category institution. Founded by eminent entomologist Dr T N Ananthakrishnan, a retired professor of Zoology in Loyola College and the former Director of the Zoological Survey of India, the present Director Fr Ignacimuthu, SJ and four other scientists, comprise the institute's research faculty. More than 20 students are carrying out doctoral and postdoctoral research sponsored by different national and international funding agencies. The ERI is focused on doing investigations on diverse aspects of insect-plant interactions. The ERI has publications of about three dozen books on a variety of topics and research papers exceeding 600 in several national and international journals of repute alongside with a turn-out of over 55 students with doctorate degrees. This center of learning spends close to Rs 8 lakh every year on infrastructure and has projects worth Rs 32 lakh in pipeline.

Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida is a deemed university and has been offering BTech in Biotechnology since 2002. In 2006 it started BTech/MTech five-year dual degree program. "Our faculty strength is about 25 and 11 of them have over five years of teaching experience. We spent close to Rs 1 crore on infrastructure last year," said Prof. JP Gupta, vice chancellor, JIIT. The institute had six companies visiting the campus offering over 40 jobs.

The Amity Institute of Biotechnology (AIB), located in Noida, established in August 2001, provides a range of courses in the biotech arena like BTech Biotechnology, BTech Bioinformatics, Integrated MTech Biotechnology, Integrated MSc Biotechnology, PG Diploma in Bioinformatics, MBA Biotechnology, MSc Biotechnology and MSc Bioinformatics courses. Its MBA biotechnology course program was started in 2003. According to Prof. AK Srivastava, "AIB possesses good infrastructure in terms of laboratories for plant and animal tissue culture, microbiology, central instrumentation facility, computational biology, biochemical techniques and molecular biology. Our investment on infrastructure is close to Rs 30 lakh per year and we have a faculty strength of 38."

The Department of Biotechnology at The Oxford College of Science, the third-ranked private institute, which offers MSc (Biotechnology) course is the top most private schools offering MSc. The postgraduate course is affiliated to Bangalore University, Bangalore and recognized by Government of Karnataka. It is a two-year, four semesters full time course. The course provides a comprehensive training to the students in application of Biotechnological skills to produce goods and services required by the society efficiently and economically. The course also provides training to the students to perform all requisite chemical, biochemical and microbiological analysis of raw material and finished product. "The faculty at the department are qualified and experienced and our faculty strength is 19. Our students are well placed too. Out of the 40 students, 28 have got placements. We spent close to Rs 65 lakh on lab equipment, consumables, and books in 2005-06," said Prof. Veda Murthy of the institute.