SHILLONG: The Director of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Meghalaya, Bibhuti Bhusan Biswal informed that the construction work of NIT’s permanent campus at Sohra would restart in the month of December after it was stalled due to the pandemic.
Speaking to the media here on Wednesday, he said that there was good progress of work as far construction activities were concerned which was earlier halted due to paucity of funds. The government of India released an additional amount in the month of February, but then the construction activities were halted in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said, “The Government of India has sanctioned another Rs 426 crore for completing the project in Sohra. Thw work was stopped due to the pandemic. The good news is that work will restart in December”.
Stating that the NIT Meghalaya is spread over a sprawling campus of 326 acres, the Director said shifting would be done as there will be prioritization of works. He said that the project would take a year to complete.
The Centre had earlier earmarked Rs 800 crore for the NIT project.
He informed that the initial intake capacity of the NIT Meghalaya is 950 students which will have B.Tech, M.Tech and M.Sc and PhD courses but will take the sanctioned capacity of 1260 in the later years. It will have 50 per cent of students from the state.
He informed that NIT Meghalaya has the top spot of all the NITs in the North East and made its presence in the 16th rank among 31 NITs in the entire country as per the government of India ranking.
Earlier, Biswal informed that NIT Meghalaya would organise its Seventh E- Convocation ceremony on Friday in which the institute will confer degrees to 10 PhD, 56 M.Tech, 38 M.Sc and 123 B.Tech students.
The Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ will be the chief guest and Sajjan Bhajanka who is the chairman of Century Plyboards (India) Ltd and also the chairperson of the Board of Governors of NIT Meghalaya will also be present.