Goa launches hunt for new IIT campus once again; fourth time in seven years

The Goa government is on a fresh hunt for an IIT-Goa campus site for the fourth time in seven years, after consistent opposition and protests by residents of Melaulim village, forced Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to announce the relocation the project last week.

Sawant also told reporters here, that the IIT-Goa project was a prestigious one and said that in view of the chaos which has plagued the project, a committee would now be formed to zero in on a fresh location for the campus.

“The government may form a four to a five-member committee comprising of educationists, IIT officials and others for verification (of the site). We do not want such a problem again," Sawant said on Monday.

"We have decided to relocate the IIT from Melaulim in Sattari. However, we have not decided where to shift it yet,” the Goa Chief Minister also said.

Sawant also said that once the committee identifies fresh options, the government would examine its recommendations thoroughly before going ahead with the project.

Goa was allotted an Indian Institute of Technology in 2014, but the elite institute has been functioning since from a temporary campus shared by the Goa Engineering College in Farmagudi village, located in South Goa.

The current site at Melaulim village in North Goa for the campus was identified by the Goa government earlier this year, after two other proposed sites at Sangem and Canacona in South Goa district also faced opposition from local residents.

But the government was forced to backtrack, after residents of Melaulim and other adjoining villages, mostly tribals, staged sustained opposition and aggressive protests accusing the Goa government of trying to drive them ancestral lands.