Odisha HRD

Learning from NIRTAR’s history

December 14th, 2009

I was intrigued by the history of NIRTAR. I think one can take some lessons from it. Following is an excerpt from its history page:

During the visit of the then Hon’ble Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi to Orissa in 1975, Mrs. Nandini Satpathy the then Chief Minister of Orissa informed the PM that there was 16.5 acres of land with few buildings donated by late Shri Bijayram Mishra to Govt. of Orissa was available in the village, Olatpur of Cuttack District at 35 kms. from Cuttack/Bhubaneswar in a rural area which could be considered for the establishment of the Institute.

In the US communities or rich individual land holders have donated land for specific educational purposes to the government. One shining example is the University of California at Irvine. Following is an excerpt from the wikipedia entry on UC Irvine.

Unlike other University of California campuses, UCI was not named for the city it was built in; at the time of the university’s founding (1965), the current city of Irvine (established in 1975) did not exist. The name "Irvine" is a reference to James Irvine, a landowner who administered the 94,000-acre (38,000 ha) Irvine Ranch. In 1960, The Irvine Company sold 1,000 acres (400 ha) of the Irvine Ranch to the University of California for one dollar, since a company policy prohibited the donation of property to a public entity.

The NIRTAR example suggest that this may also work in the Orissa context.

• What if a group of people (say in Kalahandi) pool together 100 acres of land  and donate it to the Central University of Orissa Koraput for establishing a branch there. (They can be smart in their pooling so that they also have similar or more land adjacent to the donated land; that way they will benefit via the increase in their land prices when the university opens a branch there.)
• How about people in Berhampur taking a similar step with respect to IIT Bhubaneswar?
• If people of Rourkela were to pool together 50 acres and approach XIM, I am positive XIM will be happy to open a branch there. Now lets consider something smaller.
• The central government has proposed establishment of model colleges in some backward districts of Orissa. In those districts there are many smaller towns who would like those colleges to be located in their town. I think if a particular town’s people pool together 20-30 acres and offer it to the government for the model college then the chances of that town getting  the college will become much higher.  

In general, land is a big deal in Orissa and India and pooling together some acres and donating it to a reputable organization for a specific purpose has a high chance of achieving that purpose in a shorter time.

The point of mentioning the above is that while the government does have responsibility of doing things and helping in balanced development, at times people need to take proactive steps beyond demonstrations and demands. There are too many areas in Orissa that are crying for development and the areas where people take proactive steps on their own are going to be more successful than the others.

Entry Filed under: Appeal to readers