From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: “Education is a prime mover of society and it can help solve all the problems be it poverty, floods and erosion, unemployment and raising the living standards of people,” said Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
Inaugurating the first academic session of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati (IIITG) at a solemn function at Rabindra Bhawan in the city on Monday Gogoi said, “Education is a prime mover of society and it can help solve all human problems as well as state and national problems.”
Sixty students have been enrolled in the first academic session, 2013-14. It is expected that IIITG will have its permanent campus by January 2016.
Gogoi said Guwahati IIIT is the first among the 20 such institutes to have come up in a private-public partnership mode. “It’s a new concept and a new experiment altogether that is bound to yield better results in the long run. The State Government has a 35 per cent stake, Central Government 57.5 per cent and private sector 7.5 per cent stake.”
Gogoi said the new institute would not have come up had it not been for the commendable support from IIT, Guwahati as the mentor institute.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. S. Senthilvelan, in charge admissions, IIITG and Chairman, JEE Mains 2013, said that though IIITG is in a nascent stage it has the best faculty from IIT, Guwahati.
“As the size of the students is small in number, they would get utmost care and attention from the vastly experienced faculty members of IIT, Guwahati. The learning process will be the best in comparison to the well-established institutes in the country,” he said.
Prof. Samaren Dandapat, IIT, Guwahati, said the institute with support from the State and Central Governments would emerge as the best in terms of both infrastructure and manpower.
“The mentorship of IIITG will be over till a new Director assumes charge. Till then the faculty of IIT, Guwahati would continue to impart lessons to the students in engineering and electronic courses,” he added.
Director, IIT, Guwahati and mentor Director, IIITG, Prof Gautam Barua said the new institute would now function from its temporary campus situated at Assam Textile Institute and then move to its permanent campus near the LGBI Airport. “100 acres of land have been identified near the airport for the permanent campus,” he added.