Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi bats for IIFT in Bhubaneswar

BHUBANESWAR: Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi on Saturday urged the chief minister Naveen Patnaik for providing five acres of land in the capital city and infrastructure support of Rs five crore for setting up of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in the city.
“The presence of IIFT in Bhubaneswar is bound to give fillip to export initiatives from the state and is also likely to open up additional employment opportunities for young students from Odisha. There are many state governments who had offered land free of cost and infrastructure support grant for ensuring the establishment of a premier academic institute like IIFT in their respective states,” she wrote in her letter to the CM.
Sarangi on Wednesday met union minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal and requested him to take the initiative for opening up of IIFT in Bhubaneswar.
In her letter to Goyal, she said, Bhubaneswar is emerging as a multi-cultural and cosmopolitan city in Eastern India and is headquarter of leading PSUs like NALCO and Mahanadi Coalfields. The city has also seen the growth of IT majors like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Mindtree. Besides, seafood export is also witnessing rapid growth in the city.
She also mentioned that rapid development and economic growth in Bhubaneswar has been supplemented by presence of academic institutions like IIT, IIM and others. “In spite of the presence and growth of Bhubaneswar as an academic hub, the absence of an academic institution focussed on issues of foreign trades, export and import trade laws has created a serious vacuum in supporting export initiatives from Odisha. As part of prime minister’s focus on growth of eastern India it is important that an institute like IIFT comes up in Bhubaneswar at the earliest,” she wrote.