The authorities have already sought approval from the Medical Council of India (MCI) for providing undergraduate medical education courses like MBBS.
The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, is venturing into medical education. The renowned tech institute has received permission and a Rs 230 crore grant to set up a super specialty hospital, where medical degrees will be given and research will be carried out.
Last week, the union health ministry cleared IIT-Kharagpur's decade-old demand to start specialised medical courses.
Approval has now been sought from the approval from the Medical Council of India. The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, is expected to design the curriculum.
The college will award MBBS, MD, MS and DM degrees. But the focus will be on research -- especially in in biomedical, clinical and translational areas. The hospital will also work on drug design and delivery.
Since 2001, IIT-Kharagpur has been running a school of medical science and technology, which has an inter-disciplinary three-year post-graduate programme in medical science and technology.
For the new venture, the authorities are collaborating with Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA and Imperial College, London on medical science.
The IIT Kharagpur will "bring together the two diverse disciplines of engineering and medicine in education and research," said its director Partha Pratim Chakrabarti. "Technology will be used to access and treat a large number of patients through satellite centres and secondary hospitals."
A 32-bed medical unit -- set up for the faculty, employees and students -- is well on its way to become a 450-bed super specialty hospital over a three-acre plot on the edge of the campus.
The Dr B C Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research -- named after the state's most respected physician and its second chief minister - is expected to be operational by the end of 2017.
Another 750 beds will be added gradually.
"The government has already sanctioned a grant of Rs 230 crore for the facility," said Mr Chakrabarti.