Students gain degree but lose out on college life at IIT Goa

PANAJI: Dhiraj Patel (name changed) had a good enough rank at the IIT JEE examination in 2016 to skip joining one of the new Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). But he was dazzled by brand Goa and decided that the coastal state would provide him good living conditions during his stay away from home for the first time.


Three years down the line as Patel enters his final year at IIT Goa things have not gone exactly as planned.

“This year, I will enter the final year of my programme. I will have passed out an IIT in July 2020, without having experienced the atmosphere that comes with living on an IIT campus,” he said. He will possibly be one of the 90 students who will graduate from IIT Goa with a BTech degree from the temporary campus of the Goa Engineering College complex at Farmagudi.

All the five other new IITs that were set up along with the Goa one are now operating from their transit campus, which is means they are functioning from facilities on the land acquired for the permanent campus as the new infrastructure is being readied.

But not IIT Goa, for whom construction of the first phase of their new campus should have been completed by end of 2019 as per the Union cabinet approval for the project. The sanctioned Rs 880 crore is lying unutilised as the land acquisition process by the state government has not been able to meet the set targets.

“It is frustrating,” said Patel, who only recently received a hostel room in the new block constructed by IIT Goa in the GEC campus, investing Rs 40 crore of its funds.

Land has already been identified to set up the new IIT campus at Cotarlim in Sanguem taluka, with part of the land falling in Nagvem in Quepem taluka. Of 13 lakh sqm to be handed over to the IIT, 9 lakh sqm is already in the state government’s possession and only the remaining patches that are with private owners have to be acquired.

“We had a meeting with the South Goa collector recently and the land acquisition process has started now. We hope to receive the land soon, after which the construction can be completed within a short span using prefabricated material,” said IIT Goa director B K Mishra.

But, according to sources, it was in June 2018 that the Union human resource development ministry had issued an office order, following which the land was to be acquired and handed over to the IIT. Nine months later, the process is still in its early stages.

Meanwhile, the hope of graduating from a full-fledged campus is waning for the likes of Patel.