S’garh to get National Tribal Varsity campus

Odisha will get a prestigious regional campus of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) in the tribal district of Sundargarh soon, reliable sources said on Friday. The IGNTU has its main campus at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh and is having its only regional campus at Imphal, Manipur in the North-East.

The IGNTU campus will be established on the surplus land of the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP). As the original land belongs to the tribals of Sundargarh, they will feel proud to have the university on their land, it is told.

The second regional campus establishment will cater to the need of higher education and research studies of thousands of tribal students as well others in the tribal pocket of Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.

The tribal population of Odisha is about 22 per cent, but they are the most neglected and backward in higher education as per Government statistics. So once the regional centre of IGNTU is established, all courses of the parent university will be introduced and it will benefit the tribal students.

Odisha has five ST MPs and 35 MLAs. Though a Central university has been established in Koraput, it fails to attract students of tribal districts of Sundergarh, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj. It will be a project of more than Rs500 crore.

National convenor of Netaji Subhas Janma Mati Jatra and convenor of the Tribal University Coordination Committee Debiprasad Prusti has expressed his happiness over the development. There will be no displacement and entire area will get a new look and business opportunity will benefit the locals, Prusti said.