Less than a week after Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar announced the government’s intention to promote Goa as an educational hub, the Union Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD) rejected the land offered for an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Dhargal, Pernem as the land did not meet the required minimum area. The MHRD wants a minimum of 400 acres for the IIT and what was offered by the State government was 225 acres, just a little more than half the requirement.
This has the beginnings of the rigmarole that is still being played out in the case of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) for the past five years. When Goa should have jumped in joy and embraced these two premiere technical education institutes, all it did in the case of the NIT was set up roadblocks on its path. The story should not repeat where the IIT is concerned.
Take the case of the NIT and the courses it offers. The NIT-Goa was established in 2010 offering under graduate and post graduate courses in Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics and Communication Engineering and Electrical and Electronics Engineering. It also offers PhD in these three along with in Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Economics and English. While other States clamour for an institution of this calibre, and these courses, Goa has shown little desire to be a gracious host of the NIT. An NIT is ranked very high for its excellence in teaching and admissions to the institute’s courses are purely on merit and on an all India basis. Students to the NIT are admitted based on the ranks they obtain in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main, where the competition is fierce, with the best minds getting in. An institution such as this could only be an asset to the State.
Yet, five years after it was started the NIT still functions from a temporary campus at Farmagudi, Ponda, because the State has not yet been able to identify land for it elsewhere. Some 300 acres of land identified at Cuncolim-Bali had to be set aside after locals objected to the NIT there.
Luckily for Goa, where the IIT is concerned, it has been given a second chance by the MHRD and been asked to find space for the IIT elsewhere. The State is now looking for land at Ponda or Bicholim where the institute can come up and once this land has been identified a proposal will be sent to the MHRD, which will then inspect the land before giving its nod of acceptance.
There is no reason for the government to be miserly with land where education and research institutions are concerned. It should instead be generous and perhaps offer more than required as the gains will be higher than the losses. Just look at the BITS Pilani Goa Campus and the Goa Institute of Management to gauge the benefits that reputed educational institutions of higher learning can bring to Goa. An IIT will bring the best of brains to the State to study, research and to teach. It will bring not just educational benefits, but economic and social ones too.
Across India, states and cities are positioning themselves to be regarded as educational hubs, as centres where the best of higher education and research facilities can be found. Goa should climb onto this bus, before it speeds away. An educational hub is a long term plan and would be ideal for this State. When identifying land for the IIT, the government could keep in mind future requirements of an educational hub and select a much larger piece of land that could accommodate more institutions in the years to come, that would take Goa to the top of the league where educational facilities are concerned. It is the future that the government should keep firmly in mind when developing educational needs and ensure that the vision is clear.
What Goa needs to do right away is find land for the IIT and find it post haste. Time is of the essence as this opportunity, if missed, may not come again anytime soon. Once an IIT sets up, other institutions will naturally follow.
