An expert team of Centre today visited Odisha's Ganjam district for finalisation of the temporary and permanent campus of the proposed Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER).
Government has identified 200 acres of land in Laudigaon, near Gopalpur and 160 acres of land at Palur Hill for construction of the permanent campus of the IISER, ITI Berhampur, a private engineering institute and a private house near here for temporary campus.
The IISER is scheduled to start functioning from this year with an intake capacity of 50 students, an official source said.
"It might be the final visit of the expert team to finalise the sites for both permanent and temporary campuses," said the source, who accompanied the Central team.
"The team has visited different places including Laudigaon, which is almost finalized for permanent campus. The team also discussed with the officials about the pros and cons of the sites," the source said.
Meanwhile ADM (Revenue) Sitanshu Rout said the district administration provided all information about the sites to the team.
The team members included Praveen Kumar (Joint Secretary (administration) Human Resources Development, Central government), Prof Vinod Kumar Singh (Director IISER Bhopal), Ratnam Varada Rajkumar (IIT Bhubaneswar), Umesh Mishra Chief Engineer (Central Public Works Department (CPWD) Bhubaneswar) and LN Gupta (principal secretary, technical education, Odisha government).
A five-member team of the Central government had visited these sites on November 17 last year after the state government had declared the prestigious institute would be set up at Berhampur in the month of August.
Meanwhile, state's Technical Education minister Sanjay Das Burma inaugurated a three-storied new building and laid foundation for two more in ITI here, where the government proposed to conduct the temporary campus from the IISER on December 28, 2015.
Around Rs 4.70 crore was sanctioned for the construction of the new upstairs with around 16,000-sq feet area.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced setting up of IISERs in Odisha and Nagaland.
At present, there are five IISERs under Union Ministry of Human Resource Development. These are located in Bhopal, Mohali, Pune, Kolkata and Thiruvananthapuram.
