The IIT, however, has already started functioning from this academic year with 120 students admitted to its first batch from its transit campus at IIT, Delhi. The premier institute will be shifted to the Government Polytechnic Institute campus in Ropar from the next session and will continue functioning from there till its permanent campus comes up at Birla Seed Farm.

To accommodate the IIT campus, the new admissions to Ropar Polytechnic have been suspended from this year and the remaining batch of 150 students will be given the option to shift to any other polytechnic of their choice in the state from the next session, Principal Secretary of the Technical Education and Industrial Training, Punjab, Tejinder Kaur told Newsline.

The IIT, which will be among six new ones coming up in the country, will have 27 per cent reservation under OBC quota, offering the sought-after branches like electronics, computer science and mechanical engineering.

Similarly, IINST is all set to start functioning from the coming academic session. In the absence of its permanent campus, the prestigious institute will start its classes from its transit campus either at the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration (MGSIPA) in Sector 26, Chandigarh, or Habitat Centre in Sector 64, Mohali.

Till its permanent campus comes up in Knowledge City, the state government has formally accorded its consent to provide the available space in MGSIPA and entire habitat centre for setting up its transit campus.

NABI will be set up through public-private enterprise and house agro and food start-up companies with common facilities. Two memoranda of understanding (MoUs) in this regard were signed in New Delhi recently by the Department of Biotechnology with the Department of Agriculture and Agro-Food of Canada and the National Research Council (NRC).

... contd.