Jai
Jagannath,
After a prolong series of Requests,
Campaigns, Rallies and breathless screeches of Orissa watch team
from America headed by Prof. Chitta Baral, Professor, Department of
Computer Science & Eng, Arizona State University, at last the
notorious and ruthless step mother of Orissa HRD Minister Arjun
Singh has announced announced the locations of eight new IITs and
seven IIMs along with 30 central and world class universities' to be
set up in the country during the 11th Plan period. Out of the above
buffet, Orissa gets a piece of bread. Just one IIT and a central
university.
Thanks a lot to Orissawatch Team of Prof. Chitta Baral, Professor,
Department of Computer Science & Eng, Arizona State University for
breathlessly campaigning for this.
Out of the eight IITs first announced by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh in his Independence Day speech, one IIT would be set up at
Indore in Madhya Pradesh while Orissa, Gujarat and Punjab would have
one each. The ministry had earlier announced IITs for Bihar,
Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
The 16 central universities would be set up in Bihar, Jharkhand,
Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil
Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Goa. In three states, existing state
universities would be taken over by the central government and
converted into central universities. These are Dr Hari Singh Gaur
University, Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Guru Ghasidas University,
Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh), and Goa University.
Condition is : Establishment of the IITs, IIMs and central
universities in the above states is subject to state governments
offering adequate land at suitable locations, free of cost, for the
purpose. To a question as why they are setting up the universities
in already developed areas, the minister said, "It has been
considered necessary that these are located in or near selected
large cities which would automatically have the kind of connectivity
and infrastructure which such universities would need."
"While Bihar and Andhra IITs would start functioning from their
specific locations from the coming academic year, the Rajasthan IIT
for the time being would operate from IIT Delhi. But Himachal
Pradesh IIT may take some time," R P Agarwal, secretary, higher
education said. It is also proposed to convert the Institute of
Technology of the Banaras Hindu University into an IIT. Admission to
this institute is already based on the IIT-Joint Entrance
Examination.
According to officials, each of the new IIT would require about Rs
760 crore to make it fully functional, while an IIM would need Rs
250 crore. For a central university, the requirement is Rs 250 to Rs
300 crore (including recurring and non recurring costs over a period
of four to five years). While intake of the new IITs would be around
2,500 students, it would be 120 students per year in IIMs, they
said.
However, the allocations proposed for the new institutions are not
big to start with. Agarwal said that while the three new IITs coming
up from the next academic year are provided a sum of Rs 50 crore in
the 2008-09 budget, it is a paltry Rs 10 crore for IIMs, Rs 50 crore
for central universities and Rs 60 crore for the world class
universities. "We know it is nothing but all these institutions
would take time to come up. These amounts would at least start the
process," Agarwal said. The 11th Plan allocations for these
institutions is expected to be Rs 2,000 crore for IITs, Rs 660 crore
for IIMs, Rs 2,000 crore for central universities and Rs 2,800 crore
for the world class universities, he said.
( Information collected from http://www.orissadiary.com/Shownews.asp?id=6277
)
Regards
Nilachakra
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