Union ministry did not like Kota as an IIT location as it is too far from a major city
This is very interesting. As per World gazetter Kota’s population is 807,920. The two cities in Rajasthan that have a larger population are Jodhpur (971,407) and Jaipur (2,997,114). Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph about this.
A spot near Hyderabad has been picked for the Andhra Pradesh IIT, but the HRD ministry and the governments of Rajasthan and Bihar are at loggerheads over finalising sites.
While the site Bihar picked suffers from waterlogging, the ministry considers the Rajasthan government’s choice — Kota — “too far from a major city”.
It looks to me that the new IITs will be in locations where they can form an ITIR (Information Technology Investment Regions) and close to an airport. It is not clear what "close" would mean. I hope 100kms is considered close enough. This could be an issue for the IIT in Orissa. In Orissa the major cities are (i) Bhubaneswar (1,636,216), (ii) Rourkela (542,481), (iii) Brahmapur (389,830) and (iv) Sambalpur (254,236). If Kota was not considered a major city, by that definition center may not consider Rourkela, Brahmapur and Sambalpur as major cities. But then too many institutes are coming up in Bhubaneswar and it would be better to have the IIT somewhat away from Bhubaneswar. With all these constraints, the only location that seems appropriate in terms of being near a major city and yet not in Bhubaneswar, but near another city in Orissa, would be a location between Bhubaneswar and Berhampur that is as far from Bhubaneswar as acceptable to the center. My guess is a location 100 kms from Bhubaneswar (on the NH) and on the major Rail corridor could be acceptable to the center as such a location would be only 1hr (to 1.5 hr) away from Bhubaneswar; thus not too far from the only major city in Orissa. Yet it will be close to Berhampur to positively impact Berhampur and help create a Bhubaneswar-Berhampur knowledge corridor. Also, if it is established in the Ganjam district (even though right on the Ganjam-Khordha border on the NH5) it will give a psychological boost to south Orissa which is tagged as among the most backward areas of Orissa and India.
20 comments April 12th, 2008