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 planning commission’s web pages on Education related working groups and steering committees are given at http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/11thf.htm and we copy and paste them below.
Some of the links that are of immediate interest to me are: (a) the constitution of the technical education working group (their report is not out yet) (b) the constitution and report of the higher education working group and (c) the constitution and report of the science and technology working group. I will post excerpts from them in the coming days.
Continue Reading April 2nd, 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
Dharitri (page1, page 2, page 3, page4, page5, page6, page7) has a nice summary of the various issues raised by Orissa’s MPs in the just concluded first phase of the budget session of the parliament. It shows that various MPs raised the IIT in Orissa issue and MHRD’s discrimination against Orissa. In particular:
* BJD and BJP MPs gave a notice in the Lok Sabha on this issue, and received acknowledgement from the speaker, but it did not get a chance to be included in the Lok Sabha proceedings. (page1) We hope that they insist that it gets included in the second phase of the parliament session.
Continue Reading March 25th, 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
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
Dharitri reports on three HRD related questions raised by the Orissa MPs in the Parliament. The questions were about an HRD funded IIIT, Novodaya Vidyalayas and Kendriya Vidyalayas.
December 6th, 2006
Next Posts