IIT-Mandi campus gets Environment go-ahead

Decks have been cleared for setting up of a permanent campus for IIT-Mandi in Himachal Pradesh with the Environment Ministry finally giving the go-ahead for diversion of over 300 acres of forest land for the institute.

Decks have been cleared for setting up of a permanent campus for Indian Institute of Technology-Mandi IIT-Mandi in Himachal Pradesh with the Environment Ministry finally giving the go-ahead for diversion of over 300 acres of forest land for the institute.

Earlier this year,the Environment Ministry had rejected the Himachal Pradesh governments proposal for diversion of forest land for the IIT. It finally lent its approval after the state government revised its proposal and reduced the forest land area to be diverted.

One of the eight new IITs announced by the Human Resource Development HRD Ministry two years back,IIT-Mandi is to be designed to accommodate over 8,000 students and 800 faculty,besides other staff members.

The campus will be spread over 500 acres of this 300 acres is forest area and some 7.54 acres is dense forest area.

The ministry has cleared the diversion of forest land on the condition that no construction should be carried out in the dense forest area which should only be used for landscaping and beautification.

That apart,the Himachal government will have to assure the HRD Ministry that compensatory afforestation is carried out in over 600 acres of land in lieu of the 300 acres of diverted forest land. Apart from this,it has to ensure soil conservation,conservation of wildlife in high altitude areas and so on.

IIT-Mandi is expected to research and work on developing environmentally sound infrastructure in the Himalayan region

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The eight new IITs are being set up with permanent campuses at Ropar,Bhubaneswar,Gandhinagar,Hyderabad,Patna,Jodhpur,Mandi and Indore. Many of them are facing land acquisition problems with central and state government departments.

While IIT-Gandhinagar and IIT-Rajasthan are yet to get land for their permanent campus,IIT-Mandi is still to get some its land from the Animal Husbandry and Forest departments.

The directors of the new IITs had even met HRD Minister Kapil Sibal over these issues late last year. The new IITs have also sought a revision in fund allocation in view of the escalation of construction costs.

Of the new IITs,the one in Hyderabad has been able to get the maximum funds to date at Rs 95 crore. IIT-Mandi has been allocated Rs 17 crore.