It has been about 10 days since two IITs have been co-existing at IIT-Kanpur. It is interesting to watch two campus communities pursue the same course with different identities, shared resources and faculty with an administration putting it all together to ensure the IIT bar remains as high as always. How IIT-Kanpur managed to create space and organise faculty for 120 IIT-Rajasthan students, with just over two months notice given by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry, has to do with the fact that it is blessed with a sprawling campus and has as its director Prof Sanjay Govind Dhande who has quite some experience in starting new ventures. He has earlier helped set up PGDPM-IITDM at Jabalpur and the Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management (IIITM) at Gwalior - shuttling between Kanpur and the other two cities.

"Being an IIT director is a full time job. The fact that at least IIT-Rajasthan which IIT-K is to mentor - and of which I hold additional charge as director - is on the IIT-K campus is a big help. We were only told in May that IIT-Rajasthan would have to be started this academic session from our campus. Which means in this short time we had to arrange accommodation as well as faculty for them and with the immense cooperation of our administrative and academic staff, we have managed reasonably well. The faculty has been very helpful and we have the best of teachers for IIT-Rajasthan students," he says.

This cooperation hasn't come easy and has taken a lot of effort. IIT-Rajasthan students have been accommodated in seven faculty bungalows with dormitories set up there for 15 students in each. A dining area has been created alongside one such bungalow, using a lot of fibre sheet, with a seating arrangement for 70 students.

While IIT-Kanpur managed to accommodate the IIT-Rajasthan students with some innovative use of vacant space, creating academic facilities was not all that easy. They have "optimised" their resources the best they could.

"We are sharing IIT-Kanpur laboratories and various other facilities with IIT Rajasthan. While IIT Kanpur classes are held in the morning, IIT Rajasthan students have their laboratory and tutorial sessions in the mornings and classes after 1pm when IIT-K students switch over to labs. That apart, a computer centre has been created specifically for IIT-Rajasthan students along with a separate library, with 1,500 books in its stock, which has already started issuing books. "IIT-K students from the popular Gymkhana have volunteered to open it to IIT-Rajasthan students. We have also got them separate playgrounds," says assistant registrar Satya Murty.

While IIT-Kanpur is making all efforts to make IIT-Rajasthan students feel at home on the IIT-K campus, it also feels that the students must not feel an identity crisis of sorts in their temporary campus.

"IIT-Rajasthan must have its own identity which is unique by itself. So even as they are sharing our campus they have a separate building where their classes are held, they have a dedicated building called IIT-Rajasthan where the computer centre, library, administrative office and director's office is housed. They also have a separate logo with the backdrop of Jaipur's Jantar Mantar. There are four dedicated committers looking at their issues," Prof Dhande says.

In contrast, there is IIT-Patna, which though mentored by IIT-Guwahati is facing infrastructure issues. However, it is not as if logistic problems have not come knocking at IIT-Kanpur. The HRD Ministry has said that a core faculty of 30 be built up for the new IITs but the key question that IIT-Kanpur is faced with is how and where to house the new faculty.

These issues apart, IIT-Rajasthan student Shobhit Srivastava is glad that he is starting his IIT innings from the IIT-Kanpur campus. "The facilities, faculty, infrastructure is really good and it's been a great experience so far," he says.

"We hear the site of IIT-Rajasthan is yet to be decided upon. I am not sure if we'd like to switch over to a completely new establishment with fresh faculty after the IIT-Kanpur experience," chips in another student.

This is also one of the several issues IIT-Rajasthan is considering while the ministry reserves its decision on the campus for IIT-Rajasthan and its first batch watches a true blue 49-year-old IIT initiate them.