Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi (IIM-R) is not lucky enough to see a soon-to-emerge campus at its land at Kanke’s Cheri village. Though the government allotted 90.14 acre land free of cost to the management cradle on July 29, 2013 but the construction is yet to begin.
Sources said that the cradle functioning temporarily at Suchna Bhawan since 2010 has still not shown interest for floating a tender for the building construction at Cheri. However, it is in search of 9000 square feet space on ‘rent basis’ preferably between lPN Shahdeo Chowk to CCl Gandhinagar since the month of April.
Significantly, National University of Study and Research in law (NUSRl) and Central University of Jharkhand (CUJ) which were also established around the same time are at least in a position to show an emerging campus at Nagri and Cheri-Manatu premises under Kanke block.
Showing prime consideration for NUSRl, Jharkhand High Court had directed Central Public Works Department (CPWD) to hand over the first phase of construction by July 15. All the students and teachers have been informed that the new academic session will commence at Nagri from August 1.
“Before getting a permanent land at Cheri, the way IIM-R fraternity was reacting clearly indicated that they will complete the construction and shift as soon as possible. After getting the land, the behaviour is vice-versa. As you can see, the campus of NUSRl is almost ready and CUJ’s campus is 50 percent completed,” a district administration official said on Thursday.
Notably, NUSRl and CUJ were allotted government land during the year 2011-2012.
The officer referred his discussion with team members from Government of India’s Information Technology (IT) department who visited Cheri-Manatu about two months back to locate a probable land for National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIElIT). He said, “We heard the IT members saying that IIMs leave the government granted land for some time to observe the reactions of the locals.”
IIM-R’s Director-in-charge Binay Bhusan Chakrabarti in his third convocation speech on April 11 last had mentioned the construction of Cheri campus as “main task with state of art facilities for academia, administration, faculty offices, student’s hostels, executive education and residences for faculty and staff members in the shortest possible time.””As of now, there is no change in land status of our institute. It is same what I had said in my speech in the last convocation,” he told The Pioneer today.
An official of IIM-R on the condition of anonymity said, “Our authorities have not been able to find further temporary space near Kanke till date. Nothing good is happening here. Everything is being guided by IIM-Calcutta.”
Besides infrastructure hurdles, the institute is also in process of searching a new Director after MJ Xavier resigned from the position on November 8, 2013.