Team reaches Sambalpur to choose IIM locations
A four-member team reached Sambalpur on a two-day visit on Saturday to select sites for the proposed Indian Institute of Management (IIM) brightening the prospect of admission to the premier business school from this academic year.
Though officials were originally scheduled to go to the western Odisha city on June 25, it advanced its trip by five days to meet the approaching deadline to complete admission and start classes by July 13.
“We will visit all the suggested sites for the permanent and temporary locations and submit a report to the ministry of human resource development (MHRD),” said Praveen Kumar, a joint secretary with the MHRD, who led the four-member team.
Others in the group are Pawan Singh, a professor at IIM Indore which is the mentor institute for IIM-Odisha, state technical education secretary Asit Tripathy and chief engineer, central public works department (Bhubaneswar), Umesh Mishra.
MHRD sources said the process was brought forward because expenditure for construction of the proposed campus and running cost of the transit campus would come up for approval of the Union cabinet soon. “Without finalizing the location, the ministry can’t place the proposal before the cabinet,” he added.
Technical education minister Sanjay Dasburma said the state government was informed about the revised schedule and reconstitution of the site selection committee late on Friday evening. “It is a welcome step that the MHRD has hastened the process reducing the state’s anxiety,” the minister said.
The state government has identified land in Rengali, Dhankauda and Neeldungri blocks for permanent campus besides Government Polytechnic, Rengali, Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology (SUIIT), Burla and Silicon Institute of Technology, Sason for temporary campus. The team visited Basantpur in Goshala area of Dhankauda, one of the three probable sites and SUIIT and would visit the other sites on Sunday.
Earlier, IIM Indore had told the MHRD that unless it clarified the Odisha institute’s location by June 15, admission would not be possible in 2015-16.
IIM Sambalpur
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