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IITs, IIMs need only half the stipulated land, says HRD panel

A five-member committee, entrusted to look into the issue, says they need only half of what norms prescribe.

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The Human Resources and Develpoment committee wants to look into the issue of land being allocated to institutes like IIM
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How much of land do IITs, IIM's and central universities require? Answer is just in.

A five-member committee, entrusted to look into the issue, says they need only half of what norms prescribe. For example, IIT's and NIT's (National Institutes of Technology) require only 260 acres and 150 acres, respectively, though norms stipulate 500 acres and 300 acres. For IIM's, 5-10 acres of land is just fine. There's no need for 200 acres as rules say, the committee made it clear.

The logic is that if a campus is well-designed and compact, universities don't require that much of land. Set up by the ministry of human resources development (MHRD) in December last year, the panel's job brief was to evaluate the land norms of these centres of learning, given the acute shortage of urban land.

The Draft report was prepared after consulting ace architect Hafeez Contractor. The committee held its second meeting in February 17 under the chairmanship of the Union higher education secretary Satyanarayan Mohanty. Its minutes were uploaded on the MHRD web site last week. Based on the report, the Narendra Modi government may now dilute land norms while setting up new institutions.

If the government does so, it will fast-track the setting up of the proposed IIT's and IIM's, which are finding it difficult to acquire the mandated land. These institutes were proposed in the previous budget. "The stipulated norms are way too much. Our assessment says that easing them out is the need of the hour as states can't find the mandated land," an official said.

In order to give its opinion on land norms, the committee studied the campus size and student strength in universities in the US, Hong Kong and Singapore. It then concluded that Indian institutes are occupying land way beyond their requirement.

The committee had earlier said that air connectivity should be a priority and institutes should not be more than 30-40 minutes drive away from the nearest airport. The BJP government, in its interim budget, had proposed five IITs- in Jammu, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

Five IIM's - in Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Maharashtra and Odisha – were also proposed. A Centre of Excellence in Madhya Pradesh, named after Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, and four more All India Institutes of Medical Sciences in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Vidarbha (Maharashtra) and Purvanchal (Uttar Pradesh) were the other proposals.

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