PALAKKAD: The Centre’s decision to allot Rs 7,002.42 crore for constructing permanent campuses of six Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) in the country, with IIT Palakkad all set to receive Rs 1,000 crore, has been hailed by both academicians and the public. Besides, IIT Palakkad will be allotted Rs 2,000 crore in the second tranche of funds in 2021.
Present status
The preparation of the master plan for the IIT Palakkad’s permanent campus is in the final stages and the government has acquired all but 50 of the 500.19 acres required for setting up the permanent campus.
Work is currently on at the 70.2 acres of land in Pudussery West village which will be the transit campus and the Central PWD is executing the work at a cost of Rs 63 crore. The compound wall is being constructed at a cost of Rs 13 crore. Around 12 km of the 20 km-long compound wall has been constructed. While 30 acres are located on the left side of the Gramalakshmi Mudralayam, the remaining 470 acres are on the right side of the road.
Land yet to be acquired in full
Of the 500.19 acres to be acquired for the campus, 366 acres comprised privately-owned land. Of these, only 315 acres could br acquired since some of the land owners had approached the Kerala High Court demanding greater compensation for the land surrendered. Radhakrishnan, one of the land owners who approached the High Court, told Express as per the HC’s April 12, 2017 verdict, the land holders need to be paid under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act.
The district administration had fixed a compensation of Rs 37,500 for the wet land and Rs 42,000 for the dry land. The notification for the acquisition of land was issued on June 28, 2015 in Pudussery West village. Meanwhile, the district administration had also completed the Social Impact Assessment Study for acquiring the remaining portion of the land. The remaining 20.75 acres belongs to Pudussery panchayat and another 44.81 acres to the Forest Department.
The administration has identified revenue land to be provided in lieu of the forest land at Agali, Attappadi. As per the existing norms, twice as much of revenue land should be given in lieu of the forest land acquired.
Strength of students at Palakkad IIT
In the first batch during the 2015-16 academic year, there were 117 students of which 12 were from Kerala. The largest number of students in that year was from Uttar Pradesh. There were four streams - Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.
The first and second year classes of the B Tech will be moved to the IIT’s own building in the next academic year. Currently the third batch of the BTech courses are in progress on the IIT, Palakkad campus.There are a total of 334 students for BTech , 20 PhD students and 5 MS students at the campus. More students will be enrolled for MS and PhD this December,” said M C Valsakumar , faculty member IIT, Palakkad.
The third batch of BTech this year (2017-18) saw 22 students from Kerala securing admission through the JEE Main Examinations. In 2015-16 there were only 12 students from Kerala and in 2016-17 there were only 11 students from the state.
Kummanam lauds Javadekar
BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan has congratulated the Central Government for allotting Rs 1000 crore for the first phase of construction of the IIT campus in Palakkad. Kummanam said he had received a communique from Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar in this regard in response to his earlier representation. In a statement issued here Kummanam said he was congratulating the Union minister and offering all support to him.