Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) Piyush Goyal will inaugurate the state-of-art International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) building here on Tuesday during his day-long visit of Chhattisgarh. The construction of the building is the result of efforts by both the Central Government and Chhattisgarh State Government, officials stated. Chief Minister Raman Singh will preside over the inaugural function. State Higher and Technical Education Minister Premprakash Pandey will be the chief guest on the occasion.
The IIIT is a Wi-fi enabled campus is built on 50 acres of land at a cost of Rs 200 crore. The Academic blocks, hostels, canteens, guest houses, multi-purpose hall have been completed.The Electronics and Communication Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering courses will have 40 students each in the graduation stream in 2015-16 academic session. Significantly, the Chhattisgarh government had been focussing on providing an elaborate platform for various institutions to establish state-of-art campus in the State's new administrative capital, officials stated.
The IIIT has been established as a University, under a public-private partnership (PPP) model between the Government of Chhattisgarh and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). It had been decided by the IIIT Board of Governors that IIIT-Naya Raipur would establish an identity for teaching and research in some such specialized areas of IT in which existing IIITs do not have expertise.
In this connection, keeping in view the teaching and research needs for IT applications in the energy and mining sectors, the Board requested NTPC to prepare a preliminary plan for developing IIIT's capacities and expertise in this direction. The Board also decided that IIIT-Naya Raipur would give particular attention to tailoring the programme to the needs of the IT industry, so that students passing out from IIIT may be employed directly by leading IT companies, without further skill development. For this, IIIT would establish strong linkage for course development, internships and collaboration with leading IT companies and educational institutions of national importance located in Raipur, among which are included an IIM, an AIIMS, a National law University and an NIT.
At the same time, IIIT would make special efforts to attract reputed faculty from academic institutions and experienced Adjunct faculty from industries, so that both the conceptual and experimental sides of students are strong. The IIIT is now taking systematic steps, right from the first batch of 2015 admitted through the JEE entrance examination, for attracting students securing a higher merit rank to opt for IIIT-Naya Raipur. The Chhattisgarh government has also identified sites for permanent and temporary campuses for the proposed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Durg (Bhilai) and Naya Raipur respectively.
The Mentor Institute of the new IIT in Chhattisgarh would be IIT Hyderabad. In the Union Budget Speech 2014-15, the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely had announced to set up five IITs in the Jammu, Chhattisgarh, Goa, AP and Kerala and five IIMs in the States of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha and Maharashtra.