State yet to strive for second knowledge centre, feel dons

The Pioneer, 6th November, 2008

Orissa must take lessons from the neighbouring States to develop its education and knowledge base, feel leading educationists. While almost all the leading States have already developed second education and knowledge centres, Orissa is yet to begin its homework in this aspect, said non-resident Oriya (NRO) Prof Digambara Patra, who teaches at American University at Beirut, in a well-researched letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He said that to minimise regional differences in those States and attract more investments from Central Government and private sector in the education and knowledge sectors, most of the major States in India are recently in rush to develop a secondary knowledge city of national importance. For example, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra have at least one or more secondary cities other than their capitals as knowledge and education centres. In these States, the proposed world-class central (national) university and IIT/IIM by Government of India are located in two different cities as the proposed WCCU would have additionally engineering and medicine faculties, which would be of high standard like IIT. All these States have chosen a secondary city based on regional, social, cultural and political angles for a knowledge centre. In AP, it is Visakhapatnam, in Tamil Nadu Coimbatore, in Karnataka Mysore, in Maharashtra Nagpur, in Gujarat Vadodara and in Madhya Pradesh Indore. However, it seems there is no homework by the Orissa Government to develop a secondary knowledge and education city of national importance. Though Bhubaneswar was behind many of the tier-II cities in other States in population and educational institutions, recently a lot of investment has come up in the higher education and IT sectors around the city. Dr Patra has suggested that the Burla-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda (BSJ) region can be developed as the State’s second education and knowledge centre. This region is becoming highly industrialised and well-connected to all parts of the State and country. Burla already has a university, an engineering college and a medical college apart from the Hirakud Dam reservoir, a source of plenty of water and power supply.