The land for NISER has been located near Bhubaneswar/ Khurda near the Private Engineering Colleges / Barunei Hill. Dr Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, visited the plot of land on 30.03.2007 along with other members of the Steering Commiittee of NISER Project. The State Govt. has agreed to give 300 acres of land free of cost. Govt. has also agreed to give about 44 nos of new flats near Institute of Physics for hostel / staff quarters of NISER till the permanent campus comes up.
The first batch of students for NISER will join in September, 2007. Atomic Energy Commiision has approved the NISER Project at approximately Rs 823 / crores for a 7 year period. It will now go to the Union Cabinet for approval.
April 1st, 2007
It seems progress is being made in this regard. A prominent leader in one of the top IT company of India is in charge of identifying a Dean for the IT/Computer Science program. I am told that T. N. Sheshan again visited Orissa last week regarding starting the university in August 2007. They are planning to have programs in medicine, sciences, and IT/Computer science, among other topics. The grapevine strongly suggests that the land overlooking Kathjodi near the origin of Kathajodi will be given to this university rather than NISER and NISER is being shown alternative land between Khurda and Jatni.
March 13th, 2007
In the 2007-08 budget there is no line item budget for NISER. Thats probably because NISER is yet to be approved by the cabinet. However, there is a significant increase in the budget of Institute of Physics and in page 5 item 9.04 it is mentioned that “the responsibility of setting up NISER at Bhubaneswar is entrusted to IOP.”
IOP’s budget (item 9.04, page 1) in 2006-07 was 4.96+9 = 13.6 crores. Its budget in 2007-08 is 32.75 + 7 = 39.5 crores. It can be safely assumed that a major chunk of the additional 25.9 crores is towards the NISER expenses. (Note that there are huge increases in the budget of couple of other institutes too. This includes Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad and Institute of Plasma research, Gandhinagar.)
In the 2006-07 budget for IISERs in Pune and Kolkata (item 70) there was a total of 50 crores which was revised to 20 crores. This line item does not have numbers for 2007-08. There is another line item (item 76) on IISER with 125 crores for the 5 IISERs: the established ones in Pune and Kolkata and the 3 proposed IISERs in Bhopal, Trivendrum and Mohali, Punjab.
Thus the budget meant for NISER compares favourably with the IISER budgets.
February 28th, 2007
Picturesque Naraj-Cuttack area where Kathajodi originates from Mahanadi is on the way to become an educational hub. On the Cuttack Island in Abhinav Bidanasi there is a plan for the second campus of Ravenshaw University. On the Naraj side land has been shortlisted for NISER (National Institute of Science Education and Research) as well as the University by Shri Shri Ravishankar.
February 24th, 2007
New Indian Express reports that the site sleection for NISER is down to two sites. Just based on the description of the two sites it is clear that one of them is not suitable as it is only 185 acres (not 300 acres as needed) and that site has some disputes. So the Orissa government should not delay any further and get done with the paperwork necessary to handover the only suitable site in the short-list to NISER at the earliest so that they can start an architectural competition for the campus.
February 18th, 2007
On 28th August 2006 PM Manmohan Singh visited Orissa and announced the establishment of NISER (National Institute of Science Education and Research), which now has a budget of Rs. 750 crores. The same day Union minister of State of Human Resources of Development Mr. Fatmi announced in Patna that one of the greenfield IITs will be in Orissa. The budgets of the greenfield IITs are Rs 4000 crores each. It seems some officials at MHRD used the NISER in Bhubaneswar announcement as an excuse to remove Orissa from the list of IITs. Thus the Prime minister’s visit to Orissa has cost Orissa Rs 3250 crores.
February 2nd, 2007
I was in India during December 12th-Jan 13th. Hence the long hiatus. Part of this time I was not able to access this site. I will slowly start positing on various things that happened since my last posting.
There has been very good progress in the NISER front. A web page for it has been created.
Continue Reading January 20th, 2007
New Indian Express reports that DAE is asking for free 300 acres of land for the NISER. It says that such a piece of land has been identified near Naraj. Following is an excerpt:
Continue Reading December 10th, 2006
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