NEW DELHI: The Centre will expand and further improve the education system in North East with an investment of about Rs 5,000 crore in the region. This is done to provide quality education and infrastructure improvement in educational institutions, Union Minister for Human Resources Development Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said on Tuesday.
The minister informed that the government has already sanctioned revised cost estimates of six National Institutes of Technology (NITs) at Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi and Puducherry, besides Meghalaya, at Rs 4371.90 crore.
With the approved revised cost estimates, these NITs will be fully functional from their respective permanent campuses within two years period.
Incidentally, the Union Minister had assured MP Vincent H Pala that construction of the permanent campus of the NIT Meghalaya will be completed soon. He was replying to a question of Pala in Lok Sabha.
The minister said that the government has taken some major decisions this year such as granting permission for the establishment of permanent campus of Sikkim University (a Central University) at Yangyang at a cost of Rs 986.47 crore.
The government of Sikkim has allotted 300 acres of land at cost of Rs 15 crore, out of which, 265.94 acres of land has already been handed over to the university and handing over of remaining land is under process, he said. North East is already an overall a well-educated region with Mizoram boasting as high as 91.33 percent literacy. Mizoram is followed by Tripura at 87.8 per cent, Sikkim at 81.42 per cent, Nagaland at 79.55, Manipur at 76.9, Meghalaya at 74.4, Assam at 72.2 and Arunachal 65.38 — all higher than national average.
