The 50 acres land for the proposed Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), at Ranchi is yet to be inspected by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) officials. The State Information Technology (IT) officials have decided to convince ministry’s members for the inspection and visit, in a meeting called by MHRD at Hyderabad on May 15.
According to one of the sources of the State IT department, a site selection team headed by MHRD Additional Secretary Vrinda Sarup alongwith CPWD executive engineers with an already established IIIT Director was supposed to visit the proposed premiere technical institute’s campus land, at Mauja Sanga under Kanke block around May 9 or 10, which is now postponed due to some “unknown reasons”.
“Once the site-selection team visits our permanent location and approves it, our IIIT project-proposal will be sanctioned. Thereafter, we can atleast begin our institute’s academic session at a Khelgaon building on temporary basis by the time our permanent campus gets constructed,” a senior officer of State IT Directorate told
The Pioneer on the condition of anonymity.
IIIT Ranchi is planned to function on a non-profit basis Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. For this reason, under central guidelines, two industry partners — TCS limited and Tata Motors were selected as private partners few months back.
Speaking more over this issue the officer in-charge said that a detailed Project Report including the entire academic structure required for this IIIT has been submitted to MHRD. “We were expecting the MHRD’s sanction by this academic session (2014-15) so had drafted the courses and its details which could be carried out in the Khelgaon premises like B.Tech and M.Tech in IT and Computer Science Engineering branches. Also, we had framed of beginning Doctorate courses after three years of our establishment,” another officer this directorate maintained.
He further added, “If MHRD had given immediate sanction, we could have invited students for the mentioned degree courses through IITJEE entrance examinations from this year itself.” Faculty recruitment for this IIIT is scheduled to follow All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines.
On October 11, the HRD ministry gave its permission to proceed for this Rs128-crore IIIT project proposal, claim sources. Of this 128-crore fund, the Centre, State and industry partners share a ratio of 50:35:15 totaling to Rs64 crore, Rs44.8 crore and Rs19.2 crore.
On the other hand, out of the 50 acres land, State Revenue department has transferred 37.26 GM land to the State IT department for this technical hub. Elaborating this “land transfer”, the above mentioned officials confirmed, “We are in-process of acquiring 14.40 raiyati land from the district administration. Hopefully, it will be done after the elections are over. This remaining land acquisition has nothing to do with cancellation of MHRD site-selection committee’s visit.”
Deputy Commissioner Vinay Choubey could not be contacted for his comments on the present status of this land transfer. Significantly, State capital will mark a fourth achievement in the field of national level higher education if IIIT Ranchi begins it functioning as there is an Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi, with Central University of Jharkhand and a National University for Study & Research in law (NUSRl).