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The state government is open to the idea of relocating the campus of Indian Institute of Management – Odisha (IIM –Odisha) to Sambalpur in western Odisha if site selection norms are relaxed by the Centre.
“I would like to inform you that while recommending the sites for Indian Institute of Management- Odisha, the state government was constrained by the fact that the location should be close to an airport as per guidelines circulated by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. This restricted our choice to places in and around Bhubaneswar”, said chief minister Naveen Patnaik in a letter to HRD minister, Smruti Zubin Irani.
If the Central government is willing to relax this guideline for site selection, then the state government strongly recommends Sambalpur in western Odisha as the location of IIM-Odisha, he added.
Patnaik said this in response to a letter from the HRD ministry, which sought the opinion of the state government for setting up the premier management institute in the Sambalpur region of western Odisha.
At a time when the newly created Sambalpur Municipal Corporation is going for maiden election, Patnaik’s statement supporting the western Odisha region as a site for IIM campus is likely to earn him huge political dividends.
In January this year, a central site selection committee headed by Amarjeet Sinha, additional secretary of HRD ministry had visited two sites initially proposed by the state government in and around Bhubaneswar for establishment of IIM.
Of the two sites recommended earlier, one was at Gothapatna, on the outskirt of the capital city, where IIIT is located and the other one was near Argul, close to the permanent campus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). While at Gothapatna 79.4 acres of land was available, at Argul 114 acres of land was identified for establishment of the premier B-school.
