The Government has initiated steps for developing the Government College of Engineering, Keonjhar to a center of excellence (CoE) in research of earth science and technology. At a high-level meeting was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra here on Thursday which Principal Secretary Skill Development and Technical Education HemantSharma among others attended. A direction was given to develop the college to an institute of international eminence along the lines of IIT (ISM), Dhanbad. Development Commissioner Pradeep Jena advised to have a specialised Geology Division with a five-year integrated course in Applied Geology, Geo-Physics and Geo-Engineering and to create a strong corpus fund for the institute to back innovative R & D activities. It was decided that the institute would have advanced divisions inRock Mechanics, Rock Excavation, Mineral Processing, ExtractiveMetallurgy, Material Testing, Characterisation, Geology, EnvironmentalEngineering, Mining Planning and Design and the like. It would have all the similar research facilities as ISM, Dhanbad. Principal Secretary Sharma said the entire ground-level work from construction of the building to installation and testing of the equipment could be completed in a period of 36 months. The budget requirement was estimated at Rs 42.50 crore.