New i-Hub campus set to miss third inauguration deadline next month

The project has HCP Design, Planning, and Management Private Limited as the project management consultant (PMC).

“The completion will take some time… around six months. But we will try to complete it earlier than thart,” Banchha Nidhi Pani, Commissioner of Technical Education, told The Indian Express. Officials in the education department, privy to the matter, revealed the project has been delayed due to “serious objections raised by the state government against the escalated project costs” and “major changes, along with the addition of new items, in the last year”.

Pani confirmed the existing project cost has gone up from Rs 65 crore to Rs 95 crore. While the civil work is complete, he added, the interior work is still pending. On the objections raised by the Finance Department on the project cost, he said, “Interiors like furniture, electronics, communications along with landscaping is pending. The work is cleared and expedited now.”

With state-of-the-art infrastructure and services like futuristic and advanced labs, training partners, flexible and collaborative co-working space single window solution for pre-incubation support, and mentoring funding, the Education Department has been touting i-Hub as the largest facility for start-ups in the state. Against the existing capacity of 50 start-ups and entrepreneurs, the new campus is expected to accommodate more than 1,400.