CALLING ATTENTION
Need to set up an Indian Institute of Technology in Orissa
1408 hours
SHRI BRAJA KISHORE TRIPATHY (PURI): Sir, I call the attention of the Minister of Human Resource Development to the following matter of urgent public importance and request that he may make a statement thereon:
“Need to set up an Indian Institute of Technology in Orissa as proposed in the Eleventh Five Year Plan and agreed to by the Government earlier.â€
Continue Reading May 19th, 2007
Sambada has a nice analysis on how Arjun Singh has hoodwinked CM Naveen Patnaik. The main point is that in the Lok sabha one of the HRD minister already said that the MHRD has already sent in its recommendation on the IITs in the 11th plan to the planning commission. So Arjun Singh’s assurance to reconsider when sending his recommendation to the planning commission for the 11th plan does not make any sense. He has already made his recommendation! If he had said he will reconsider MHRD’s decision then it would have made sense. But he did not say that!
Sambada follows up with the above opening with an analysis of how MHRD has been biased against Orissa during the last UPA term. This analysis and a similar analysis by Samaja (both were probably fed by Tathya.in) are based on the initial tabulation of fully MHRD funded marquee institutions in our article “MHRD discriminates against Orissa: You be the judge!”
May 17th, 2007
It has been widely reported [Times of India, Statesman, Telegraph, Pioneer, New Indian Express, Samaja, Pragativadi, Kalinga Times] that the CM met HRD minister Mr. Arjun Singh on the IIT issue and Mr. Singh promised to consider Orissa for an IIT when the 11th is finalized.
However, Mr. Singh’s promise does not mean much. He has made such promises before during the time when the CM met him for NIS. In fact with respect to IIT Kharagpur’s campus in Bhubaneswar Mr. Singh’s meeting with the CM had been reported on September 29 2006 as follows:
The Chief Minister, Orissa, Shri Naveen Patnaik met the Union Minister for Human Resources development, Shri Arjun Singh today to discuss about the establishment of a campus of IIT, Kharagpur in Orissa. Shri Patnaik stated that the Government of Orissa have offered 300 acres of land next to Bhubaneswar city for setting up the campus and the State Government is fully committed to provide all necessary assistance for the institution. Since Orissa is fast emerging as a hub for industrial activities, an institution of the stature of IIT will provide the much needed boost to the efforts of the Government in providing support to these industries. The Union Minister, Shri Arjun Singh stated that the Central Government is positively inclined for setting up such an institution soon.
Similarly, with respect to KBK Central University Mr. Singh’s meeting with the CM had been reported on October 24 2005 as follows:
Statesman News Service BHUBANESWAR, Oct. 24. — Chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik today urged the Centre to accord approval for a central university in the undivided Koraput-Bolangir-Kalahandi (KBK) districts, besides expediting setting up the proposed Regional Centre of Studies in Integrated Sciences at Bhubaneswar. These requests were made by the Chief minister during his meeting with the Union Human Resources Development minister Mr Arjun Singh at New Delhi today. Mr Singh sought a formal proposal from the state government for the establishment of a central university in KBK region while appreciating the rationale behind the idea, said an official release.
So we should not get lulled by Mr. Singh saying that he will consider. We need to put pressure on him from all sides to actually grant an IIT for Orissa.
May 16th, 2007
Orissa Minister of Tourism and IT Surya Patra talks to journalists about central apathy and specifically lays out what happened with respect to the IIT shifting as well as cancellation of the plans to establish a branch campus of IIT Kharagpur in Orissa. This is reported in major papers in Orissa: Dharitri, Samaja [1,2], Sambada, Pragtivadi, Statesman etc. In Samaja it is a front-page headline.
Samaja also has an article with a picture on the protest organized by BJD in regards to the IIT issue.
May 15th, 2007
May 13th, 2007
Various news outlets report that the CM has written to the PM again on the IIT issue. [Statesman, India eNews, New Kerala,New Indian Express, Kalinga Times, India Edu news.net,Dharitri, Samaja, Sambada, Pragativadi]
Following are some quotes of what the CM is supposed to have written.
- “The recent reply of Union minister of state for human resource development on the floor of the Parliament regarding establishment of IITs in the country has come as a shock to us.â€
- “When I met the honourable minister of HRD in this connection, he had indicated to me that the case of Orissa can be considered for a full-fledged green field IIT. The recent decision of government of India to locate the IITs in states which already have the benefit of many Central institutes indicates that objective criteria have not been followed in deciding the locations of the 3 IITs.”
- “It is indeed painful that the decision has now been reversed.â€
May 12th, 2007
During the last two days there have been many developments on the IIT in Orissa front. Following is a quick summary of them.
May 10th, 2007
Dharitri reports that the minister answering the no call motion had said that upon the advice of the scientific advisory committee an IIT is to be established in “Orissa”, but then she corrected herself and said “Bihar”. More interstingly, she also said that Minister Fatmi never said that an IIT will be established in Orissa. However, Minister Mr. Fatmi was in the Lok Sabha at that time and he was silent even when the Orissa MPs were looking at him for an answer.
May 10th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from the Indian Express article.
Replying to the calling attention, Minister of State for Human Resources D Purandareswari said … As she proceeded to read out a list of educational institutions in the state that were receiving Central assistance—it was in answer to criticism that the state was being discriminated against—the NDA members began protesting, claiming the assistance was paltry. At this BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra rose to say, “There has been injustice against Orissa,†and led the NDA camp in a walkout.
Two comments:
1. Its laughable that the minister was reading out educational institutions in Orissa that receive central assistance. Every state has such institutions. What we are talking about is institutions like IIT that are international brands; institutions that are fully funded by MHRD; institutions like IIT, IIM, SPA, IIIT, IISc, IISER and Central Universities.
2. It is significant that the NDA leader of the Lok Sabha led the walk out and said what he said. I hope if and when the NDA comes to power he and other NDA leaders will come to Orissa’s aid and make things more equitable.
May 10th, 2007
On May 8th 2007, NDA MPs from Orissa brought a call attention notice in the Lok Sabha about an IIT in Orissa and dissatisfied with response walked out of the parliament and were supported by other NDA MPs in this walkout. Speaking about this MP Baijayanta Panda of BJD is reported to have said, “Orissa is being continuously neglected by the Centre, especially by the ministry of HRD.” Is Mr. Panda right? Or is this a typical whining allegation that opposition parties from various states regularly throw at the government.
Continue Reading May 9th, 2007
During this UPA rule MHRD has announced and started several top-notch institutions across India; some are mentioned in a recent PIB press release. Following is a list of them:
- IISER Kolkata, West Bengal (1)
- IISER Pune, Maharashtra (1)
- IISER Mohali, Punjab (1)
- IISER in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (1)
- IISER in Thiruvanthapuram, Kerala (1)
- IIT in Andhra Pradesh (1)
- IIT in Rajasthan (1)
- IIT in Bihar (1)
- IIM at Shillong, Meghalaya (1)
- SPA in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh (2)
- SPA in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (2)
- Upgradation of Bengal Engineering and Sc U to an IIT clone (IIEST), West Bengal (2)
- Upgradation of Andhra Univ Engineering College to IIT clone (IIEST), Andhra Pradesh (3)
- Upgradation of Osmania Univ Engg College to IIT clone (IIEST), Andhra Pradesh (4)
- Upgradation of IT BHU to IIT clone (IIEST), Uttar Pradesh (1)
- Upgradation of Cochin Univ of Sc and Tech to IIT clone (IIEST), Kerala (2)
- IIIT Kanchipuram, Tamilnadu (1)
- Allahbad University made to a Central University, Uttar Pradesh (2)
- Manipur University made to a Central University, Manipur (1)
- Arunachal Pradesh university made to a Central University, Arunachal Pradesh (1)
- Tripura university made to a Central University, Tripura (1)
- New Central University in Sikkim, Sikkim (1)
- CIEFL Hyderabad made to a central university, Andhra Pradesh (5)
Orissa is among the bottom three (and now at the bottom) in terms of per-capita spending by MHRD in fully funded higher education institutions and it does not have an IIT, IIM, Central university, Institutes of National Importance, IIIT etc.
If so many new institutes are being made by MHRD, and Orissa did not have any of the above kinds of top-notch institutions to begin with, why a single one of the new ones fully funded by MHRD are not in Orissa.
May 9th, 2007
Newsreports [Times of India, Hindustan Times, Tathya.in, Kalinga Times, Statesman, Indian Express, Sambada, Samaja 1,2,3, Dharitri 1,2,3,4 ,India-e-news, Pragativadi] and emails are coming in regarding the IIT issue being raised in the parliament. At first glance the news is negative, especially the headline in Times of India which says “Govt says No to an IIT in Orissa.”
However, this is a starting point in Delhi. Now the MPs can set up an appointment with the PM and make a case. Another good aspect of this is that the walkout by the Orissa BJD+BJP MPs is reported to have been supported by the NDA partners. We need to find out by how many and if there were any BJP stalwarts. In any case, this provides a fallback option. If the MPs fail to convince the PM, then having the NDA partners on board now, makes it easier if and when the NDA comes to power next.
If one is depressed after reading the news items, they may checkout what happened when the NIS issue was brought up in the parliament Q & A sessions in December 2005.
May 8th, 2007
(Update: Tathya.in has a nice story on this.)
(From Lalit Patnaik)
Dear friends,
Yesterday, Agamee Odisha has decided to call all it’s members and supportive organisation and also each & every Swabhimani Odia to join the Mass rally to Governor’s House on 8th April’07. Our demand for sanctioning an IIT in Orissa and upgrading UCE, Burla to IIEST will be handed over to Governor. The Memorandum will be sent for Priminister of India through Governor of Orissa. The rally will start from AG square to Governors House on 8th April’07( sunday) and the duration is from 8.30 am to 11 am.
Continue Reading April 3rd, 2007
The IIT issue rocked OLA yesterday. Some BJP legislators were very vocal about it and said they were fed up with the central government’s negelect with respect to higher education locations. In jest, some even suggested that Orissa should have an economic blockade against the center as suggested by Biju Patnaik decades ago. Other members suggested that an assembly committee on this issue be formed and that committee visit the Prime minister on this issue. The proceedings of the assembly on the debate on IIT shifting is further reported in Tathya.in, New Indian Express and Samaja (in Oriya).
March 30th, 2007
Pragativadi on 3/9/2007 reports that HRD minister Mr. Arjun Singh has said that the proposal for an IIT in Orissa is still under consideration and the state government has received a letter to that effect from Mr. Arjun Singh.
However, the headline of the Pragativadi news item “Arjun Singh assures Orissa will have an IIT” does not match with the text of the news item.
Continue Reading March 14th, 2007
Dear Honorable Union HRD Minister, Government of India, Mr Singh,
With reference to the news report published in Hindustan Times on 26th Feb 2007,
Reference:
http://digpatra.googlepages.com/20070227_HT_IIT.pdf
…
The argument made by HRD ministry saying “presence of 12 centrally funded educational institutes and announced NISER forbid Orissa to get a new IIT†is also equally baseless. If it would have been the case than Andhra Pradesh has 31 such centrally funded institutions including HRD ministry sponsored central university Hyderabad and beside many DRDO
laboratories, still the HRD ministry has proposed new IIT and is also considering for two new IIEST in the state. Additionally other central institutes like IIPH and NIPER are being established in Andhra Pradesh.
Reference:
http://digpatra.googlepages.com/20070227_state_wise_national_lab_ins.pdf
Continue Reading February 28th, 2007
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