Patiala, Nov 15 (IANS) A total of 1,976 students received degrees at the 32nd convocation of the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology on Thursday.

This reflects an increase of about 10 per cent from last year's figure of 1,731, the college said in a statement.

Among those who received their degrees were 639 girls. The degrees included 77 PhDs and 650 masters in science.

Minister for Finance and Planning Manpreet Badal, who was the chief guest, congratulated the students.

--IANS vg/mag/sed