Kosal Discussion and Development Forum

IIT Kharagpur to open its second campus at Kolkata; IIT Bhubaneswar should plan for a campus in Western Odisha

November 29, 2010 at 10:43 am sanjibkarmee 1 comment

Following is a report by TOI:

KOLKATA: Four years ago, the state government had given 10 acres to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, for its second campus. But the institute has not been able to put up the boundary wall till now as it has not been given possession of the land by Hidco, the housing and infrastructure agency that is developing Rajarhat as a township.

Apparently, the plot that had been allotted to IIT-Kgp has a path through it, which is used by locals, who have reportedly blocked the handover of the land. According to the agreement between the institute and Hidco, the latter would handover the land after walling it. But even after repeated reminders from the institute, Hidco has done little. Presently, with its go-slow policy on land takeover, Hidco is reportedly not willing to push the case too much to avoid another land-related controversy.

“We are in trouble as the Union human resources development ministry had allotted funds to us long back to develop the new campus. We might be asked to return the funds because of this delay,” said AN Majumdar, the deputy director of the institute.

A lot of excitement was generated in 2006, when the land was allotted to the institute. IIT-Kgp had even drawn up a blueprint for the land.

Though regular postgraduate tech programmes will be there, this is not to be its focal area. The institute authorities want the campus to have advanced laboratories, run incubation programmes and become an industry hub which will attract international and national industries to set up their R&D infrastructure here. It shall also be a nodal centre for the larger technology parks being set up around the institute in Kharagpur.

“The Kolkata campus shall be mandated to promote an inter-disciplinary structure to incubation programmes, multi-disciplinary academic programmes, advanced research and development activities. We will also have some PG programmes in the emerging areas. But all this can start only if we get possession of the land!” said PP Chakraborty, dean of the institute’s sponsored research initiatives, who is in charge of drawing up the plans for the new campus.

“We are looking at helping tech professionals who already have a basic degree and do not need to stay on the campus for a full-time programme,” Chakraborty added.

The multi-disciplinary areas being targeted include Information Technology, VLSI & Embedded Systems, Media and Communication Technologies, Information Assurance and Security, Urban and Regional Informatics, Human Resources Management and Business Administration, and, Bio-Informatics.

Entry filed under: Athmallik, Balangir, Bargarh, Boudh, Deogarh, Educational Policy, Higher Education Zone, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Region watch, Sambalpur, Subarnapur, Sundergarh.