Sudarshan Das on Agami Orissa’s “IIT in Orissa” plan
March 1st, 2007
 Dear Friends,
Recently we at Agamee Odisha had two rounds of preparatory meetings (on 26th and 28th Feb) on IIT- movement, of intellectuals, students, professionals, activists and Representatives of mass organisations, net work organisations, NGOs etc. These two meetings were well attended and one of the remarkable features of the meetings was that many important dignitaries attended the meetings and conveyed their solidarity to the movement for IIT in Orissa. In these two meetings the agenda of the first phase of movement has been finalised
which are as below-
1) On 11th of March, there will be a Citizen’s Convention at Bhubaneswar (Probably at Utkal University Auditorium, or to be finalised shortly) to which representatives of various mass organisations, Political Parties, Net Work organisations, NGOs, Student Organisations, employees organisations etc besides intellectuals, artists, academicians etc. For this 10,000 leaflets will be printed and distributed for awareness generation. A booklet will also be printed
which will be the base paper for discussion in the convention. A target of mobilizing 500 participants has been fixed.
2) There will be a student convention, the date of which will be announced in the convention. All student organisations, college union leaders will be invited to this “All Orissa Students Convention”.
3) A torch light procession has been planned during the Assembly Session to attract the attention of the house on the demand.
4) There will be a “March to Governor House” by intellectuals, artists, academicians and other general public who will meet the His Excellency the Governor of Orissa through whom the memorandum to the Central Govt will be sent.
5) Effort will be taken to meet and request the MLAs, Leader of the Opposition, Speaker of the Assembly and CM for an all party resolution in favour of the demand for IIT in Orissa.
6) MPs of Orissa will be contacted to take up the issue in Parliament.
7)Post card campaign will be undertaken at various places of the state and on a particular date these post cards will be sent to the PMO office with demand “We want IIT in Orissa”.
8)The culmination of all these movements will be in the form of a mass dharana infront of Parliament in the month of April, during the second phase of the Budget Sesion of the Parliament.
This is the first phase of the movement during which there is also plan to take it to various districts and other places like we did during the NIS movement. A tentative budget has been finalised for this which amounts to Rs.1 lac, the detals break up will be posted later on. We appeal to memebrs of this group and to those who are in soliderity with the demand for IIT in Orissa to come forward in favour of this movement and provide suport in terms of phisical presence during the programme, taking forward the campaign and organise different programmes relating to the movement, writting letters to appropriate authority, financially contributing to meet the expences for the programmes etc.
In soliderity with movement for making “Another Orissa Possible”.
Sudarsan Das
Entry Filed under: IIT, oDishA
12 Writeup
1. Piyush Patnaik | March 2nd, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I think some people from national level TV channels should be invited at every stage to give a wider coverage.
2. Chitta Baral | March 2nd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Great idea. Thanks.
3. Umashankar Das | March 12th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Adding to the above comment, I think we could ask Vir Sanghvi and Malvika Singh to produce a story on IITs in Orissa. The reason why I mention these names is that These people are known to be friendly with Mr. Naveen Patnaik. Also, I think , Prabhu chawla( Editor for India Today) is a good friend of Naveen Patnaik. Mebbe we should try them to do something for Orissa.
Cheers, Keep up the good work.
4. Chitta Baral | March 13th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Good idea Umashankar babu. Let many of us independently contact the journalists you mentioned. cheers Chitta
5. R S | March 18th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
The best way to do it is to convert NIT Rourkela to IIT and establish a NIT in Bhubaneshwar by converting one of the existing Engineering Colleges.
NIT Rourkela is in the top 20 engineering institutes in the nation and it deserves to be converted to IIT
6. Chitta Baral | March 19th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Converting NIT Rourkela to an IIT is a good idea. I had written along those lines in Indian Express last year. See http://www.indianexpress.com/story/8266.html
I think at some point in the future upgrading NITs to IIT type (not necessarily IIT, as many oppose that in teh name of diluting the IIT brand) institutes may come up.
7. MANAS DEBATA | March 19th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
All the while providing the required raw materials for the national development , We have ,in return ,received precious little.The centre talks about the Megapower plants to be located in Gujarat ,Maharastra or elsewhere .It’s very easy to understand the logic behind it.The sleeping guy always finds himself at the receiving end.It’s time to rise up and get heard.Why cant there be an IIT,a mega powerplant ,a naval dockyard,an international airport or any other major central research oganisation at our place?
8. MANAS DEBATA | March 19th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
We,Oriyas,as per the present state of things,can hope for a better future by augmenting our human capital.The economic rape of orissa continues.By demanding and finding institutions,educational centres,research oganisations, We can effectively regulate the central steering.
9. R.P | March 20th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I hope all of us understand what a greenfield IIT means. Instead of creating pressure on the single issue of a green field IIT for Orissa under the 11th Plan, we are rather diluting the core demand and creating more confusions. First, converting NIT into IIT would need a separate struggle, second one more NIT at Bhubaneswar looks remote. So, what about the extension campus of IIT Kharagpur in Bhubaneswar. it is good to have some alternative options, but that certainly doesn’t mean we will go on doing permutation and combination leading to more confusion than solution.
10. Chitta Baral | March 24th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
I agree with Mr. R.P. At this moment we have a good case for a greenfield IIT, as one was announced and then shifted. This gives us an issue of injustice to fight against. Lets focus on that.
There will be time for the other things. For example, when and if some NITs are converted we can think about that. When other IIT branch campuses are established (there were plans for such branch campuses in Ahmedabad, Trivendrum, BBSR and Kolkata) then we will ask
for BBSR one. Etc.
As Mr. R.P. said let us focus on the greenfield iit. All updates on this are at http://iitorissa.org
11. R.P | March 26th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
The Orissa government should come up with an approach paper for higher education at the earliest. Not only it should outline the national institutes which it plans to demand, but also the finer details including its location to have the maximum geographical reach. For national level institutes like IIT, IIM, NIT and Central Univversity it should directly ask them to locate in cities like Berhampur, Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur and Rourkela. Andhra Pradesh demanded an IIT at Baser. So, this specific demand with its advantages outlined got the first nod, where as in rajasthan the government is finding it difficult to find a suitable location for it, as each town is claiming this institute. My intention is not that, before getting an institute we must first decide its location, but if a location is attached to a specific demand it becomes easier to galvanise people. Not only this, we should try for regional chapters of reserach institutes like Institute of Economic Growth, NCAER, NIPFP and national Maritime University. For example we may directly ask for a regional center of NCAER at sambalpur or a center of National Maritime University at Berhampur and Central university at Koraput.
12. Chitta Baral | March 27th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Mr. R.P.: Write to me at chitta–aat–gmail–dot–com. I will share with you a comprehensive plan that i presented to the Orissa govt. three times to three different groups of officials. I think you have ideas that will improve on my draft.
cheers
Chitta