PM to kickstart work on national institutes in Punjab

Mohali, September 06: Punjab is all set to overcome the dearth of qualified and competent faculty, deterioration in education standards and unemployment in technical manpower with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh kickstarting work on national institutes in Punjab later this month, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said.

The modalities are being worked out for him to visit Mohali and Ropar in the middle of September to lay foundation stones of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Ropar, Indian Institute of Nano Science and Technology (IINST) and National Agro Biotechnology Institute (NABI) in Mohali.

This will be his second visit to Mohali after September 2006 when he had laid the foundation stone of the Knowledge City in Sector 81.

Punjab Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh, who has called a special meeting to chalk out special arrangements ahead of the PM’s visit, told Newsline that though the Union ministries concerned have intimated them but official confirmation from the PMO was still awaited.

Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) Chief Administrator Vivek Partap Singh said the parcels of land earmarked for these national institutes in the Knowledge City have already been handed over to the respective Union Government departments.

“We have also offered them to start work on these institutes,” Singh told Newsline.

These national institutes will be the first of its kind in the state. The NABI will be part of country’s first agro-food cluster, which will house an agro-food biotech park and processing unit. The IIT will come up at Birla Seed Farm, spread over 500 acres of vacant government land in Ropar.

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.

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