IIT Movement- Citizen's Convention: First Step of Public Action

Dear All

As the first step of the movement for IIT/IIEST in Orissa, a Citizen's
Convention has been organised on 18th March at Utkal University with
participation from cross sections of people. The participants,while supporting the demand, reaffirmed their faith and extended solidarity on Agami Odisha's plan of action for building people' movement to achieve the demand. You may find a brief report on this from the write-up of Sri Dhiren Ku Ray which is placed below.

The Convention approved the plan of action of Agami Odisha in unleashing the movement which are as follow-

1) Intellectuals Rally and submitting the memorandum to PM/President of India through the Hon'ble Governor, Orissa. The date will be finalised looking at the availability of the Governor.

2) Sudents convention will be organised with representations from
college/University student's Unions and Student Organisations. The date will be announced shortly.

3) Torch Light procession will be organised during the Assembly Session on a date convenient to participants, mainly students.

4) MLAs /Speaker of the Assembly/Leader of the Opposition/Chief Minister will be approached with the memorandum on the demand with request to come up with an all party resolution in the floor of the Assembly in favour of the demand.

5) There will be district processes to build up the public opinion and action
in favour of the movement.

6) All these public actions will be culminated in a rally and dharana at Delhi during the Session of the Parliament.

The above action points form the first phase of the movement and
learnings/experiences from the first phase will determine the course of action for the second phase of the movement.

NB-It is worth mentioning here,that a group of 10 people, 7 women, came from Kandhamal district to participate in the convention. While expressing their solidarity to IIT movement of Agami Odisha, the delegates requested Agami Odisha to support and facilitate their movement on various demands of the people of Kandhamala, which they are doing under the banner of Kandhamala Bikash Parishad.

Sudarsan Das

New Indian Express: Orissa poised for mass movement

Orissa poised for mass movement
Thursday February 8 2007 11:32 IST

BHUBANESWAR: Orissa being given a short shrift by the Centre on the development front might be a common issue but frequent instances of shifting projects from the State to others have raised heckles among the people.

The Human Resource Development Ministry’s recent approval for setting up three more Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Rajasthan, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh bypassing Orissa, which was named as a beneficiary state only last year, is once again poised to lead to a mass movement.

HRD Minister of State MAA Fatmi in August last year had announced that the proposal for establishing IITs in Bihar, Orissa and one Western Indian state would be included in the 11th Five-Year Plan. But the decision was changed and the one proposed for Orissa was handed over to AP.

According to sources, Orissa is most deserving for allocation of an IIT not only in consideration of the industrial boom, ensuing requirement of quality technical personnel, support for technical colleges but more importantly for it figures among the bottom three states in the Ministry’s spending list. Rajasthan and Bihar are the other two.

As per the 2006-07 budget, the MHRD’s per capita spending on higher education institutions plus institutions of national importance in Orissa is only Rs 4.07, while in Rajasthan and Bihar it’s Rs 2.59 and Rs 1.87 respectively.

Reason: These states have the least number of HRD Ministry-funded institutions. Thus these states need more focused attention subjected to development initiatives.

Establishment of the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) cannot be counted against an IIT because it’s funded by the Ministry of Atomic Energy and not HRD.

Besides, the other States are beneficiaries of multiple institutions of national importance. Bihar and AP, each would have new National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER).

AP would also have an Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH) while two universities, Osmania University College of Engineering and Andhra University College of Engineering have been short listed for up gradation to IIT status and called Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology.

Thus, taking into account the emerging conditions in Orissa that necessitate quality institutions to churn out personnel, the Union HRD Ministry should sanction an IIT to the State, noted academician and professor of Arizona State University Chitta Baral said.