Slow land allotment holding back varsities
Source: The Sangai Express / COurtesy - TNN

Guwahati, January 25 2018: Bottlenecks in the land allotment process by State Governments have slowed down the expansion of Centrally-funded higher education institutes in the North East, junior HRD Minister Satyapal Singh said.

"For our plans of developing the Centrally-funded higher education institutes in the North East to take off, State Governments should allot land free of cost.

Because of problems posed by such hurdles, some institutes are functioning with make-shift arrangements," Singh said here during a recent visit to assess the functioning of Central institutes.

Citing the stalled expansion bids at NIT in Sikkim and IIIT in Manipur, the Minister said the primary reason the plans could not take off was that the State Government could not provide suitable plots of land.

HRD Ministry officials said the NIT located in Sikkim was supposed to get a plot of land in Gangtok, but is now functioning from a temporary campus at distant Ravangla with limited infrastructure.

Similarly, the IIIT in Manipur is yet to get a permanent campus.

"The Centre will take up the matter with the respective State Governments to fasttrack land allotment for the premier technology and higher education institutions in the region," Singh added.

During his visit, the Union Minister interacted with institutional heads and urged everyone to come together and help improve standards in education, research and innovation.

Institutions like IIT-Guwahati have been able to draw global attention in recent years despite a problem in retention of faculty, Singh said.

"Faculty members from other States of the country are still reluctant to come to the North Eastern States because of the geographical distance from mainland India," he added.

He also attributed the retention problem to most faculty members wanting to go outside the State for better career prospects for their children.

Children of faculty members from outside the State are barred from appearing in important State-level competitive exams after Class XII by State Government norms.

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