Story behind the the ABA Ghani Khan Institute of Engineering and Technology

December 17th, 2008

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

… The human resource development ministry has decided to open nine new NITs instead of 10, replacing the tenth with an institute to be named after A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury.

The Union cabinet approved the Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute of Engineering and Technology on November 20, allocating Rs 97 crore for the project.

The institute will be based in Malda, the late Congress leader’s bastion.

… a cash-strapped government has quietly decided to scrap one NIT to accommodate the institute named after Choudhury without spending more.

… Unlike the NITs, which have a national character and admit students from across the country, the Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute will primarily cater to local students, sources said.

“It will not be an NIT and will not even be run like one. The idea, pushed by the late Congress leader’s family, was not to have a national institution but a memorial to Choudhury. And that’s what this institute will be,” a source close to HRD minister Arjun Singh said.

… The Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute will not be run by a central law.

Choudhury’s family members, it is learnt, have met Arjun at least twice to urge him to start the institute. A source in the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that it, too, had been petitioned by the family.

…But the HRD ministry, the sources said, decided instead to propose the Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute in place of one NIT.

In 2009 if there is a friendly government in the Center Orissa should try for Biju Patnaik Instutute of Engineering and Technology along the above lines.

Entry Filed under: Eng. colleges - SLIET CIT etc, KBKIET in Kalahandi/Balangir, Learning from others