Prime Minister Narendra Modi would dedicate the Argul campus of the Indian Institute of Bhubaneswar (IIT) Bhubaneswar to the nation on December 24, informed IIT BBS Director Prof RV Rajakumar at a Press meet here on Thursday.
Rajakumar said the Prime Minister would dedicate the institute in the presence of Governor Ganeshi Lal, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram and Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and others.
He also informed that the infrastructure under the phase-1, planned for 1,000 students, has been completed while the infrastructure under phase-II is planned for 2,500 more students and would be completed in 2019.
The phase-II construction includes three school buildings, a lecture hall complex for 6,500 students, 2,000-seat boys’ hostels, a 400-seat girl's hostel, faculty quarters block, a staff block, a central research facility, a central workshop, a student activity centre, playfields, an auditorium and 50 per cent of commercial complex, a dispensary, a Director's bungalow, STP and sewerage network and external development.
The institute is fully functional in the Argul campus having seven academic schools with 1,765 students, 149 faculty members with five centres of excellence, i.e, in Augmented and Virtual Reality, Energy Materials, Design Innovation, Bay of Bengal Costal Observatory and Probiotics.
He also said that along with the inauguration of the institute, Modi would also lay foundation-stone for a permanent campus of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Brahmapur from here through videoconferencing.
IISER Brahmapur Director Prof KVR Chary said the institute would focus on education and research themes chosen within and across the departments of biological, chemical, mathematical and physical sciences.
He also said the IISER, planned to have around 200 students along with research scholars pursuing PhD, aims to enhance the IISER contribution to the pool of highly skilled scientific manpower in the country manifold to meet the scientific and research challenges in the country.