MVJ College of Engineering, Bangalore

Currently celebrating its silver jubilee, MVJCE which is set in a sprawling state-of-the-art 15-acre campus, has established itself as one of Karnataka’s top-ten engineering colleges

Equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and a consistently good academic record, the low-profile MVJ College of Engineering, Bangalore (MVJCE) has commenced a year-long silver jubilee (25 years) celebration programme. On the agenda are inter-faculty and inter-college cultural festivals, national level engineering seminars, blood donation camps, quiz and elocution contests.

“MVJCE is ranked among the top ten of Karnataka’s 120 engineering colleges. Invariably our annual intake of 700 students is filled within the first round of CET counselling and our management quota of 108 seats attracts over 500 applications. Moreover we have students from eight Afro-Asian countries enrolled with us. Over two-thirds of our students receive appointment letters before they graduate,” says M.J. Ramani, president of the Venkatesha Education Society (VES) registered in 1982 by the late Dr. M.V. Jayaraman teacher, scholar and visionary. Since then over the past two decades, VES has promoted 11 tertiary education institutions with an aggregate enrollment of over 5,060 students instructed by 210 faculty. In 2003 MVJCE the flagship institution of VES received ISO 9001-2000 certification from TUV Rheinland (Germany) for its high quality best practices.

Strategically located in Bangalore’s IT Corridor, contiguous to the International Tech Park, MVJCE is set in a sprawling 15-acre landscaped campus with over 3.5 lakh sq. ft of building space. The college inducts 750 students (including 36 postgraduates) every year and has an aggregate enrollment of 3,000 students instructed by a team of 210 experienced faculty including 13 Ph Ds and 24 M. Phil degree holders. MVJCE offers its 3,000 students a choice of 11 traditional and emerging engineering disciplines and postgraduate management programmes. Barring medical electronics, biotechnology and information science, which have been introduced recently, all other undergrad programmes are accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) of the Delhi-based All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE).

Like all engineering colleges in Karnataka, MVJCE is affiliated to the Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum and has consistently recorded 96-100 pass percentages in examinations conducted by VTU. Certainly, a tour of the college campus indicates that the management has spared no effort to provide a thoroughly modern infrastructure for its students. Each of the 13 departments in the college is equipped with a specialist compact library, six fully wired classrooms with overhead projection systems, a 20-seat computer lab, a seminar hall, and two laboratories. Common facilities include a 120-system internet centre, cafeteria, separate men and women hostels within the campus, a bookstore and health clinic.

Moreover MVJCE’s spacious Central Library spanning a floor area of 21,000 sq. ft houses nearly 40,000 books and subscribes to 300 national and international journals. “We believe that supplementary reading is very important. Our library is used by 800-900 students daily and has an annual budget of Rs.100,000. We have also signed up with the Developing Library Network (Delnet) of AICTE which allows our students and faculty to access knowledge resources available in several online libraries in the country,” says Dr. R.M.O. Gemson, head of the aeronautics engineering faculty.

Sustained investment in carefully hand-picked faculty the college boasts 13 PhDs and 24 faculty reading for doctorates and enabling infrastructure has resulted in the college’s enviable industry placement record. The placement division with its ultra-modern facilities including a sound-proof conference room, two spacious group discussion and three interview rooms as well as a 150-seater seminar hall equipped with an LCD projector, modern public address system, etc is a popular annual meeting point of HRD managers of blue-chip companies such as ICICI, Wipro, Infosys, Accenture among others during the placement season. “All graduates who don’t opt for higher study or join family businesses receive job offers at average start-up salaries of Rs.2.5 lakh per annum,” says Gemson.

On the co-curricular activities front, MVJCE enjoys a sound reputation for sports excellence. The college’s 15-acre campus boasts sprawling cricket and football grounds and tennis, badminton, volleyball and basketball courts. The annual MVJ Memorial Cricket Tournament is rated among Karnataka’s most prestigious inter-collegiate events. Moreover in athletics, MVJCE has consistently produced the top five medal winners in the annual VTU sports meets.

Twenty-five years on, the MVJCE management has ambitious plans on the anvil for expansion. They include a massive infrastructure upgradation programme, signing of academic and research agreements with foreign universities, and introduction of new study programmes. “Our first priority is to upgrade the campus infrastructure with a 1,200-seater auditorium with contemporary acoustics to conduct conferences and functions. Moreover we plan to introduce two new study programmes at the undergrad level in the next two years,” says Gemson.

Madhurima Duttagupta (Bangalore)