MHRD team okays alternative land for IIT-D

All decks are cleared to house the Indian Institute of Technology-Dharwad (IIT-D), which would be coming up on a sprawling 470 acre premises at Mummigatti, 10 km from Dharwad city.

A team from the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), headed by Additional Secretary S Subramanyam which inspected the alternative land for the IIT-D on Thursday, has given green signal to set up the permanent campus on the new land within three years.

‘New land is more ideal’

Subramanyam said that the new land is more ideal than the earlier one and the team is highly positive on developing this into a township and create all facilities required to house this institute of national importance. The state government, in September, had proposed 507 acres of land adjacent to the Pune-Bengaluru National highway to house the IIT. Subsequently, the MHRD sanctioned the premier institute to Dharwad. Later, the government sent another proposal stating that the land allotted to IIT had some technical problem and an alternative land in the same area (1.5 km from the existing land) could be used for the IIT.

Subramanyam said that in a month’s time, the survey of the 470-acre land would be taken to mark the boundaries and Rs eight crore would be spent for construction of the compound wall. The PWD officials have been asked to undertake the compound wall construction work. The district administration has assured of developing a 100-foot road to connect the new IIT campus to the national highway and the building construction work will commence soon, he added. A few modifications are required to be taken up on the new land and this would be done in consultation with IIT-Powai, Mumbai, the mentor IIT for IIT-D, he noted.

IIT-M director Prof Kakkar said that the focus is on developing IIT-D into a pedestrian campus and maintain green cover there.

Classes to begin on July 23

He said that the classes at IIT-D would begin at the transit campus (Walmi building) on July 23 and a total of 120 students would be enrolled for the first batch. Computer Science, Mechanical and Electronics courses would be started this year.