BASAVANAGUDI: BMS College of Engineering, the first private engineering institute in the country, was founded in 1946. In the run-up to its 70th anniversary, the college is hosting international conferences and workshops all year.
Located near the famous big bull temple (Basavangudi), it was one of the city's only two engineering colleges for many years.
The college proudly takes forward the legacy of its philanthropist-founder B M Sreenivasaiah.
From just three undergraduate courses, the college — attached to the All India Council for Technical Education, Delhi, and affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi — offers 13 undergraduate and 16 postgraduate courses.
The college is now accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) with an ‘A’ grade, securing 3.41 out of 4 GPA in 2013. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), which evaluates technical programmes, has accredited 11 of its 18 programmes and has recognised the college as a Tier I institution. Principal Dr Mallikarjuna Babu says, "Five programmes such as civil, mechanical, industrial, chemical and telecommunications, have been accredited for five years and the remaining six for two years."
Following the NBA accreditation, the programmes have also been recognised by the Washington Accord, an international programme which assesses professional engineering programmes, in December 2013.
Dr Babu says the college can be compared with the best anywhere in the country, because it constantly enhances the way learning happens on the campus.
"In 2014, we modified the syllabus of the first year," says Babu. "We had introduced biology for engineers and collaborative engineering labs, which helped with the practical component of the syllabus."
The coming academic year, plans are on to revamp the syllabus for the other batches. The goal is to make students employable.
"How to make them entrepreneurial? How do we make the curriculum innovative? This is what we will be working on. We want to bring project-based learning into mainstream pedagogy," Babu told City Express.
The college will also incorporate a greater number of industry courses to help students stay abreast with changing technology trends.
"We have already partnered with organisations such as ZTE, Wipro, Bosch, Texas Instruments to have sessions with our students. This way, we will be able to align our study module with corporate needs," he says.
A Distinguished student looks back
I am indeed proud that my alma mater has entered its 70th year. I studied electrical engineering and we were the first batch in our discipline, which had a good number of girl students. I am thankful to the faculty for providing a conducive environment for us to learn and grow. Many of my professors are my role models -- Prof Alsinger used to teach us Electrical Machines, Dr S R Krishnamurthy, field theory, Dr Murgesh Mudaliar, transformers, and B S Ramakrishna, circuits. The quality of education here is on a par with global institutions.
— M S Indira Class of '81 Principal, Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology
Former V-C remembers his college and his friends
'We split dosas at Vidyarthi Bhavan'
During my days, there were only two colleges in the city: UVCE and BMS. And funnily, UVCE was considered the best, the place for all intelligent students. Nevertheless, the facilities at BMS were excellent, be it infrastructure or faculty. I used to frequent Vidyarthi Bhavan with my friends every week and we used to share a plate of dosa. I will always remember those days. I am an active member of the alumni association and we are working towards enhancing the research capabilities of the college.
H P Khincha, Class of '66, former vice-chancellor of VTU, now chairman of Karnataka State Innovation Council