Regardless of the attempt to industrialize Orissa, for a long time to come a large number (perhaps majority) of people in Orissa will still use agriculture for their livelihood. Also various reports mention that Agriculture is the top focus of the current government in Orissa. With that in mind, I am thinking to push for a second Agricultural University in Orissa. Many other states already have more than one agricultural university. (See the lists here, here, the ICAR list and the wikipedia entry.) I would like feedback on what would be a good location for the second Agricultural University in Orissa.
My initial instinct says Bhawanipatna/Kesinga, as I have heard about Kalahandi’s agricultural potential; also that location creates a good geographical balance. That was probably one of the main reasons the government earlier announced an agricultural college in Bhawanipatna. If I could get some more supporting data and arguments I would like to push that the proposed agricultural college in Bhawanipatna be made into a university and become the second Agricultural University in Orissa.
October 26th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in India Journal.
The government of India is planning to establish 10,000 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in rural areas across the country for imparting technical training to youths.
Minister of State for Planning V Narayanasamy announced this while inaugurating the first national convention of rural institutes, organized by the National Council of Rural Institutes, here Oct 19.
“We have opened the flood gates for foreign investment in the education sector. Our thrust is on expanding the educational infrastructure in the rural areas by opening more institutes and universities,” the minister said.
He said plans were afoot to set up one rural university in each backward and tribal clusters across the country. Besides, 25,000 schools would also be set up in rural areas under the Public-Private Partnership mode.
Some of the existing Rural Universities in India are:
Looking for the "New Education Policy of the Nation reflects the principles evolved here in developing the rural university concept " I came across the document at http://www.ncri.in/html/english%20finacial%20guidlines.pdf which mentions this policy, but this policy was made in 1986 and revised in 1992. There is no mention of "Rural Universities" in the 11th plan. I guess the minster’s staement above may be referring to the upcoming 12th plan. If that is the case, it is a great idea to pursue it now.
If indeed as the minsiter says, a rural university is established in each backward and tribal clusters across the country Orissa could go after at least 3 such universities: one in the KBK district cluster, one in the Gajapati-Kandhamal district cluster and one in Sundergarh-Mayurbhanj-Keonjhar district cluster. In this regard we must watch out the pages of the National Council of Rural Institutes.
October 23rd, 2009
Earlier in https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/3327 I mentioned the mechanism to provide formal feedback to the Higher Education Task Force. I have received some feedback. Among them I highlight two of them below as they are good examples of feedback that has a good chance of having an impact.
The first one is about the Paradeep region. The complete feedback is at http://www.orissa2020.org/paradeep-area. Following is an excerpt from that feedback.
- To develop and upgrade the Orissa Maritime Institute, Paradeep excellence at par with a world class institute.
- To start a National Institute of Port Management at Paradeep on the lines of Fire institute, Nagpur well equipped for port engineering and designing, keeping the new upcoming port in the state and the country.
- To start a National Marine Research Institute specifically keeping the Olive ridley, mangroves, and marine ecology in the surrounding area.
- …
This feedback is extremely valuable as I had no idea that there was a Orissa Maritime Institute in Paradeep. It proposes institute that are very specific to Paradeep and it is obvious how Paradeep is the right location for these institutes. I would request others to consider giving feedback in a similar style: specific to a particular location. If one has ideas and knowledge about multiple locations, then please consider giving them separately. One can of course give feedback in whatever style they want. But my gut instinct is that feedback in the above style has a higher chance of having an impact. The task force just has to look at the bullet points and if convinced add it to the specific plans for that region.
Here is another example of a good feedback. It is about the Hinjilicut region and the complete feedback is at http://www.orissa2020.org/hinjlicut-area. Following is an excerpt.
A. Science College, Hinjilicut (Established in 1963) is the 2nd best College in the district after Khallikote College, Berhampur. There is a long demand for opening PG Stream Courses with MBA and MCA!!! Hope you would take care by converting its Status to an Autonomous College as a best regard to this district.
B. Women’s College: In memory to Late Gyan Patnaik, request to open a Women’s college (at least a State level institute) at Hinjilicut as you can notice towns like Bhanjanagar / Aska / Chatrapur / Digapahandi are having Women’s college, but we are yet to start a Women’s college in this Town.
The complete list of areas that I hope to be able to push for is at http://www.orissa2020.org/home/area-wise-plan. Based on my knowledge I have made some initial bullet points for some of those areas. I would appreciate your feedback on specific areas in that list.
October 22nd, 2009
Notifications
This is a perfect time to give feedback about higher education in Orissa. I think feedback given through the official feedback mechanism has a high chance of being read and by the right people. In general, it helps if the feedback is short, to the point, and based on logic. Some of my initial thoughts are at http://www.orissa2020.org/ . Any feedback on that is most welcome.
October 20th, 2009
Following is from a report in Pioneer.
The committee will study the present scenario of higher education in the State in all sectors, including industries, agriculture and medical.
The committee has been asked to suggest measures and means to improve the situation and bring it at par with international standards, keeping equity, excellence and inclusion of focus areas.
It will also suggest a draft higher education policy for the State. It will also prepare two annual action plans for 2011 and 2011-12 and two five years perspective plans for the State corresponding to the 12th and 13th Five Year Plan period up to 2021-22.
Besides the core objectives, sub-committee will be formed to examine expansion and structural configuration, quality and curricular concerns, governance issues including autonomy and regulatory systems and financing of higher education.
Higher Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said five regional consultative workshops will be held in Cuttack, Balasore, Sambalpur, Jeypore and Berhampur to elicit opinion of the intelligentsias and stake holders. After the regional workshop, a State level workshop will be held in Bhubaneswar.
The members of task force are:
- Professor Trilochan Pradhan: Founder and Retired Director, Institute of Physics and Ex-Vice-Chancellor of the Utkal University
- Prof KL Chopra (former Director, IIT Kharagpur), NBA
- Prof DP Pattnaik
- Prof DP Ray, VC, OUAT
- Prof AK Pujari, VC, Sambalpur University
- Prof Sunil Sarangi, Director, NIT, Rourkela
- Prof Chitta Baral, Arizona State University USA
- Prof Priyambada Hejmadi (former VC)
- Prof Swadhin Patnaik, Director, Institute of Mathematics
- Mr. Abani Baral
- Prof DV Raman, XIMB
- Prof LN Mishra, former Utkal University VC
- Prof Rabindra Ku Nanda, former Prof in Chemistry
- Prof Damodar Acharya, Director IIT Kharagpur
- Dr. Rajib Sahu, Resources Consultant
- Dr Achyut Samant, UGC member
- Mr. Madhusudan Padhi, IAS, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Higher Education
In addition there will be many special invitees. As per a Times of India report, they include:
- All other vice-chancellors of universities in the state (Utkal, Berhampur, NOU, FMU, Ravenshaw, BPUT, VSSUT, Culture U, KIIT U, SOA U, NLUO, CUO, Sri Jagannath U)
- Director, NISER, Prof Chandrasekhar
- Ex-state information commissioner Radhamohan
- Director, IIIT, Bhubaneswar, Prof Gopal Nayak
- Commissioner-cum-state project director, OPEPA
- Director of higher education
- Director of secondary education
- Director of elementary education
- Director of technical education and training
- Director of medical education and training
- Prof Bhagaban Prakash
- Chairman, HDF, Prof D K Ray
- Prof Dhanada Mishra
- Prof M K Mishra
- Retired principal, R D Women’s College, Prof Bijaya Mishra.
Some of my initial thoughts are at http://orissa2020.org. (A lot of the thoughts there have been shaped with discussions with many people, especially Dr. Digambara Patra.) Please write me with your suggestions and feedback at orissavision2020@gmail.com. As various people know more about the areas they have had some connections (grew up there, went to school there, etc.), thoughts about particular town/city/district/area are most welcome and will be appreciated very much.
[I received a very thoughtful feedback about the Hinjlicut area. Since I did not know the exact details about where Berhampur is growing, where Hinjlicut is growing etc., the feedback helped me to better think about that area. Such ground level feedback is most welcome and very much appreciated.]
However, please do have a state-wide perspective.
The Central government, the knowledge commission as well as the state government are serious about improving the GER from 12.4% to 30% by 2020. The Knowledge Commission has recommended that the number of universities in India go up from 350 to 1500 and that there be 50 national universities. The higher education budget has been going up from one 5 yr plan to another; so I expect that during the 12th and 13th plan there will be more central and national universities. So a lot of new universities, colleges and institutes will be established. Plus, there may be opportunity for extension campuses of exisiting institutes, similar to IISc Bangalore’s plan for an extension campus in Chitradurga, Karnataka. So if we plan properly, we can mitigate a lot of inequality and incorporate a lot of inclusiveness. Please watch out for this blog as well as the site http://orissa2020.org.
My membership in the above committee, puts certain restrictions on my public activities. In particular, it means that I can no longer publicly campaign for X or Y issue (including the ESIC issue).
October 8th, 2009
Update: The following was written before I saw this article in Pioneer.
Tathya.in has a report on Dr. Digamabara Patra’s request for a national or central university in Bhawanipatna, Kalahandi. A lot of the arguments made there make sense. Many of the recent central universities have been established in rural and semi-urban areas and indeed there is no reason why one should not be established in Bhawanipatna; especially since its citizens have been asking for one for more than 2 decades.
However, as mentioned in the article https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/3229 adequate infrastructure seems to have been an important factor in determining the locations of the new IITs, IIMs and National universities.
For Orissa to have them in locations ouside of Bhubaneswar, there are two ways to go about it.
- Argue that adequate infrastructure should not be a requirement or they will automatically come once the institutions are established.
- Develop areas outside Bhubaneswar to have adequate infrastructure.
To me pursuing (2) has a higher chance of success than pursuing (1) and even if (1) is successful the institutes/universities in locations without appropriate infrastructure will struggle until the infrastructure eventually catches up which may take a long time if just left to fate. (Such a struggle may result in Orissa not being given in appropriate numbers additional central/national institutes.)
[In India people sometime point out that IIT Kharagpur was established in a rural location. First, Kharagpur is only 116 kms from Howrah. Second it has been a major railway junction for a long time. Third it was the first IIT and for a long time only one of 5 IITs. Similarly Roorkee was the oldest engineering college and is close to Haridwar and Dehradun. There are a few top universities and institutions in the US that are in rural areas, but these are exceptions, and the infrastructure in rural areas of US are quite good compared to rural areas of India. For example, Univ of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Penn State University in State College, PA are often mentioned in that context. But both do have small airports with commercial flights.]
Before we suggest what needs to be done regarding developing areas outside Bhubaneswar to have adequate infrastructure, let us address what may be coming in the future and why Orissa needs to do this urgently so as to not risk missing future allocations of national institutions.
The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) in its December 2006 note on higher education has explicitly suggested 50 national universities in India. It says:
We recommend the creation of up to 50 National Universities that can provide education of the highest standard. As exemplars for the rest of the nation, these universities shall train students in a variety of disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, basic sciences, commerce and professional subjects, at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. The number 50 is a long term objective. In the short run, it is important to begin with at least 10 such universities in the next 3 years. It is worth noting that the National Universities need not all be new universities. Some of the existing universities could also be converted into National Universities, on the basis of rigorous selection criteria, to act as exemplars. We recognise that there could be a human resource constraint if faculty members are not available in adequate numbers to establish these universities.
The current government has implemented most of the recommendations of the NKC and exceeded some of them. For example, instead of the recommendation of 10 national universities in the three years following the report (2007-2010), establishment of 14 have been announced. Moreover, the higher education budget has been increasing drastically from one five year plan to the next. The 12th five year plan starts in 2012 and it is expected that it will take up on the long range objectives of the knowledge commission. In other words there could and should be more central and national universities in the 12th plan.
[My impression is that how soon additional national universities are established will depend on the success of the first 14. It seems to me that the locations of the first 14 have been greatly influenced by the consideration of, where in each of the states selecetd, does it have the best chance to succeed.]
Unless Orissa is prepared for it, Orissa may lose out pieces of those plans on lack of infrastructure grounds. Other states with multiple locations with adequate infrastructure will get preference and Orissa may lose out.
However, 2012 is still 3 years away and if adequate steps are taken very soon, Orissa should be able to get its fair share.
The pity is there are areas in Orissa which are on the verge of having the necessary infrastructure, mostly through private investment, but because of non-constructive opposition, blind suspicion towards industrialization and the relcucatnce of many to speak out in favour of development and industrialization, the development and associated infrastructure building has been greatly hampered. The governments (state and center) are also at fault for their sluggishness on some aspects.
Following are some suggestions:
- The state government should push for the completion of the airport in Jharsuguda within a year.
- It should make an all-out effort to have commercial flights operating out of the existing airport in Rourkela. In general, the people of the area need to recognize the existing infrastructure and potential of Rourkela and take advantage of it. Currently, as a friend of mine would say, Rourkela is an orphan. This is a pity. It is a big asset to Orissa, especially to the western parts of Orissa; but is severely underutilized and undermined.
- Coming back to Jharsuguda, the people there should follow a smarter approach in not opposing and rather facilitating industries coming up there, and at the same time being vigilant about environmental and land acquisition related R & R issues. If these industries and investment are allowed to materialize there soon, then Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area would become a large metro with adequate infrastructure to have and support any and all kinds of institutes and universities. But will the people do that? Or will they continue to be controlled by or scared of the anti-industry activists.
- Similarly, both Bhawanipatna (Lanjigarh to be precise) and Rayagada areas have industrial investors who have been senselessly opposed. If the people would take a smarter approach that mixes development with being vigilant about environmental and land acquisition related R & R then both these areas would be able to get infrastructure where a central university (and possibly more) would flourish. But will the people do that? Or will they continue to be controlled by or scared of anti-industry activists. In Lanjigarh, Kalahandi, the local MP has recently taken a more sensible approach. I hope there is a quick resolution as this area desperately needs development and the resulting infrastructure.
- The state government should push for the rail infrastructure, particularly, the Khurda-Balangir line, the Talcher-Bimlagarh line and connectivity to Kalahandi, to be completed at the earliest.
The above is extremely important for the development of the western parts of Orissa where there is often a feeling of neglect. If the people there do not follow a smarter approach and only follow the strange approach that many (not all) seem to be following (such as opposing industrialization and thus infrastructure building but wanting things that need infrastructure) the places that follow a smarter approach (inside and outside Orissa) would be gainers. The same is happening in some other places in Orissa too – Paradeep and Kalinganagar come to mind, but these places are in closer proximity to Bhubaneswar and because of that they may be less harmed.
October 4th, 2009
In light of some comments in Orissalinks and several efforts that are going around in the Cyberspace, I would like to give a bit of history of Orissalinks that would make our stand clear in terms of promoting all around development of HRD infrastructure in Orissa.
We had several blogs that are precursor to Orissalinks.com. The first two were:
- http://iiser.blogspot.com/ started October 2005: This was about getting NIS to Bhubaneswar which was earlier announced in 2003 by the President of India and HRD minister of India but was omitted when IISERs were proposed.
- http://kbkcentral.blogspot.com/ started October 2005: This was about getting a central university to KBK.
Couple of the blogs after that were:
- http://newiits.blogspot.com/ started December 2005: At that time there were plans to upgrade some existing institutions to an IIT or existing IITs opening branches in other locations. We pursued both.
- http://iits-11thplan.blogspot.com/ started January 2007: After the first three new IITs were announced and Orissa was left out this was to push for an IIT in Orissa.
With the help of Prashant Sahoo, we started this consolidated blog orissalinks.com in Novermber 2006. The first postings of this blog was about KBK Central University. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/date/2006/11.
We have been fortunate that the goals of our initial efforts were achieved and we now have NISER, an IIT and a Central University in Orissa.
There were other achievements including helping the UCE Burla students and alumni in their efforts to make UCE Burla an unitary university. The idea was mooted in this blog in October 2007 (see https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/693) and later support was provided by email. See their acknowledgement in their souvenir.
While a lot of our initial focus had been about getting Orissa its fair share, dealing with inequality within Orissa was also a concern from the very beginning. Although we did not frame it in the terms of "inequity within Orissa" our initial postings on KBK University and the kbkcentral blog were about addressing the lack of opportunities in the KBK districts.We continue with several other efforts such as making VSSUT, Burla an IIEST, having a branch of IGNTU in Kandhamal and getting an ESIC medical college to Rourkela.
We also wrote specifically about inequality within Orissa. One of our early post was in April 2007. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/100. Since then we have raised this several times and will continue to do so.
But we would like it to be done, at least in this forum, in a respectful way and avoiding divisiveness. I also think that is the most effective way.
Following are some of my suggestions:
- We should not show any hatred towards any region of Orissa. (Sometimes one may not mean that, but the words imply that.) While it is ok to point out that some area, say the Bhubaneswar area, has too many of something as compared to the rest of the state, it is really not helpful to say something like since X will be in the Bhubaneswar area, I would rather not have it in Orissa at all.
- We should not use divisive terminologies.
- Personally I think it is usually better to argue for certain amenities and infrastructure elements in particular metropolitan areas rather than whole regions especially when there are divisive stereotypes about those regional distinctions.
- As described in http://orissa2020.org (in particular http://www.orissa2020.org/home/area-wise-plan ) I think we can initially focus on five tier 2 regions (Rourkela area, Berhampur area, Baragarh-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area, Balasore-Baripada area and Koraput-Jeypore-Sunabeda area) and five trier 3 A regions (Bhawanipatna, Balangir, Phulbani, Angul and Keonjhar). See the above links for the reasoning behind why these ten are our first choice. Specific mailing lists or yahoo groups on each of them would be useful in interfacing cybercitizens with people phyiscally located in those areas. This will allow organization of some ground level teams and actions when needed.
- While looking out for our own backyard is important, it is more effective if one does not only focus on their own backyard or one is not too obsessed on their own backyard.
- It is more effective to argue for a location of an institute, when another location for it has not been announced. It creates divisiveness when one suggests or campaigns that institute X announced for location L should be moved to location M. A better alternative in that case is to say that a branch of X or something like X should also be in M. That is what we used when campaigning for NIS in Bhubaneswar. We never said that the IISER in Kolkata should be moved to Bhubaneswar. We said that we are happy that Kolkata gets an IISER but we would like Bhubaneswar to have an NIS or an IISER. That way the campaign does not pit people in favor of L against the people in favor of M. The more unified an effort is the better its chances of success. Especially, if one makes enemies or treats others as enemies then it works against their goals. The intelligent and effective approach is to convert others to support or even pursue your goals and not make enemies.
- On the other hand if X is announced for location L and someone from L says that I am from L but I think for these reasons the institute X should be in M, then that is the right spirit. That is what is happening in the ESIC medical college in Rourkela effort.
- There will be cases when several areas are under consideration for a single exclusive institute. At that time we should keep the debate about the location civil and logic based. In such debates people arguing for their own backyard is expected and reasonable, but one must keep in mind that it automatically decreases their credibility in the eyes of the others.
In summary, if we work unitedly for all of Orissa and respect some ground rules (such as the ones above), the chances of success are much higher.
September 8th, 2009
With an aim to take India’s GER from 12.4 to 30 by 2020, the global average being 26, on July 24th 2009, the Human Resource Development minister of India Mr. Kapil Sibal asked each state to come up in three months their higher education vision.
I have created a site and put some initial thoughts on it at http://orissa2020.org. I plan to convince the Orissa government to incorporate as many of the items mentioned in that site as possible. It is work-in-progress but is in a decent shape now. I would like your feedback on it. Please send email to the address mentioned in the site, or you could leave comments on this posting. I hope there is a healthy debate on this issue.
August 2nd, 2009
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