Odisha government finally approaches SAIL for a medical college in Rourkela

Update: Following is from Samaja.


Following is an excerpt from a report in tathya.in.

Finally it seems Tarun Kanti Mishra has come to the rescue of thousands of citizens’ genuine demand for a Medical College at Rourkela.

Chief Secretary has taken up the issue with the Secretary of the Ministry of Steel.

Citizens were demanding for the ESIC Medical College in the Steel City for more than two years.

However ESIC decided to set up the Medical College here as the State Government offered land on the outskirts of the Capital City.

… While Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has proposed to up grade Bokaro Steel Plants’ hospital to a Medical College, similar move is needed feel, Mr.Mishra.

So the Chief Secretary discussed the matter with Union Secretary Steel to set up a Medical College at Rourkela under the aegis of Ispat General Hospital (IGH).

IGH is an excellent hospital and has lot of facilities along with top medical personnel.

Now the State Government will take up the issue with Chief Minister batting for the same, said sources.

Chief Minister is likely to discuss the issue with Union Minister Steel in this regard, said sources.

For long we have been urging the Odisha government to take up with SAIL for a medical college. Finally the Odisha government came to senses. I guess better late than never. In particular we pointed out that since SAIL is making a medical college in Bokaro, it should be pursued for one in Rourkela.  Following are some pointers regarding the medical college SAIL is making in Bokaro.

(i) News articles that mention this: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070226/asp/jamshedpur/story_7441681.asp

(ii) The web page of the Bokaro Ispat Educational trust which talks about this: http://www.bietrust.com/

(iii) The site http://www.hsccltd.com/secured%20projects.htm which mentions that its is doing a pre-feasibility study for SAIl medical college in Bokaro.

21. June-08 Prefeasibility Report for establishing Medical College at SAIL, Bokaro

Also, some time back there was news that SAIL Rourkela was looking for renewing its mining lease. If it is still hanging, then it makes it a perfect time to broach this topic with SAIL management and the Steel Ministry in Delhi. (http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowBussinessNews.asp?id=8891 )


 Some of our earlier articles mentioning this point are at: 

10 comments May 17th, 2010

Mahanadi Institute of Medical Science and Research, MCL, Talcher, Odisha: Some details from tathya.in

Following are excerpts from a report in http://www.tathya.in/news/story.asp?sno=4070.

… The institution has been named as “Mahanadi Institute of Medical Science and Research, MCL”. 

This will be a 500-bed Medical College and Hospital at Talcher in Angul district. 

Earlier the Board of Directors of MCL has already approved for setting up of a Medical College at Talcher by the coal company.

The institution will be managed by a trust.

Accordingly a trust has been formed and registered in the name of “Mahanadi Medical Education Trust” under Registration of Society Act-1860.

The CMD,MCL will be the Chairman of the Trust. 

… The Odisha Government recently gave its no-objection certificate (NOC), said a senior official in the Department of Health & Family Welfare. 

The Medical College would be set up on a 60 acre patch of land along the same lines as Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow. 

… Pending laying of Foundation Stone, all other activities required for the opening of the Medical College at Talcher are being taken.

In this regard a meeting of the Trust will be held very shortly to discuss the further course of action to be taken, said the release.

MCL will also upgrade its Nehru Shatabdi hospital to a super specialty hospital, said sources.

2 comments May 12th, 2010

NASA Ames Space Settlement Design Contest 2010: Prateeksha Das from Rourkela has the top individual entry

The web page of this contest is at http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Contest/. The results of the 2010 page is at http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Contest/Results/2010/index.html. Following sentence is from that web page.

Prateeksha Das, Ispat English Medium School, Odisha, India’s entry "Paradise Reclaimed" won the inaugural Bruce Clark Memorial scholarship which goes to the top individual entry.

She is from the 11-12 grade.

Following is from Dharitri.


Last year a team from Bhubaneswar co-won the grand prize.

16 comments May 5th, 2010

Xavier University bill getting fine tuned; plans to offer undergraduate programs

Sources suggest that the Xavier University Bill is getting finalized and may be introduced in the Odisha assembly in the upcoming assembly session. There is plan that the proposed Xavier University (which will be established by the XIMB people) will have undergraduate programs including in Arts and Commerce.

This would be a Godsend. While Odisha now has top notch programs in Engineering (at IIT, NIT, VSSUT, CIPET), Science (NISER), Law (NLUO), Business (XIMB), Social Work (NISWASS), Public Health (AIPH, and soon IIPH) and Education (RIE), and soon will have a top notch program in fashion design (NIFT) and medicine (AIIMS-like Institute), it does not have top programs in Commerce and Arts. Thus the proposed Xavier University offering these programs will fill a huge lacuna. There are several reasons I believe that the Arts and Commerce programs at the proposed Xavier University will be top notch.

  • They have track record in Odisha and India. Their XIMB is among the top ranked business schools in the country.
  • The top ranked Arts and Commerce programs in the country include many other sister Jesuit institutions such as Loyola Colleges, St. Xavier’s colleges and St. Joseph’s colleges.
  • Xavier University being a university will be able to modernize and revise its programs at will and thus will have advantage over other colleges that need to work with their universities. (Some of the top ranked colleges are now autonomous though.)
  • Many of the other top ranked colleges are uni-disciplinary. Xavier University will be able to share faculty among multiple programs and thus able to create more multi-dimensional programs.

The proposed Xavier University offering top notch arts and commerce programs would help the other institutions to improve their arts and commerce programs and may even encourage other groups (such as KIIT and ITER) to establish good programs in Arts and commerce.

Thus the Odisha government should not delay and speed up the creation of Xavier University.


 

Following is from India Today’s 2009 list of top ranked Arts and Commerce programs in India.

May 2nd, 2010

Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF)

Following is from the page http://rrrlf.nic.in/aboutfrm.htm.

RRRLF is a central autonomous organization established and fully financed by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. RRRLF is registered under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act, 1961. It is the nodal agency of the Governemnt of India to support public library services and systems and promote public library movement in the country  commensurate with the objectives as embodied in its Memorandum of Association.

… The Foundation works in close association and active cooperation with different State Govts. and Union Territory Administrations through a machinery called State Library Planning Committee (SLPC/SLC) set up in each State at the instance of the Foundation. To participate in Foundation’s programmes, a State Government/U.T. is required to contribute a certain amount fixed by the Foundation.

Since 2005-06 the Foundation has also taken up the initiative to develop the District Youth Resource Centre (DYRC) in collaboration with Nehru Yuvak Kendra Sangathana, an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Sports & Youth Affairs.

The objectives of RRRLF, as listed in http://rrrlf.nic.in/objecfrm.htm are as follows:

RRRLF function as a promotional agency, an advisory and consultancy organisation a funding body for public library developement in India. Some important objectives are :

to promote library movement in the country ;

to enunciate a national library policy and to help build up a national library system ;
to provide financial and technical assistance to libraries ;
to provide financial assistance to organisations, regional or national engaged in the promotion of library developement ;
to publish appropriate literature and to act as a clearing house of ideas and information on library developement in India and abroad ;
to promote research in problems of library developement ;
to advise the government on all matters pertaining to the library developement in the country.

 As per http://hkmsl.gov.in/librariesorissa.htm Odisha collaborates with RRRLF for its libraries.

4 comments April 25th, 2010

Number of model schools in the first phase to be 3500 (1000 more than what was previously approved)

For additional background and the list of 123 EBBs in Odisha see https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1689. Following is from the PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=60782.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs today approved the setting up of 1000 additional model schools as a benchmark of excellence in Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs) through State Governments, thereby taking the total number of model schools to be set up through the State Governments to 3500.

The financial requirement for setting up 2500 schools under State Governments, which were approved by CCEA in November 2008, was estimated as Rs.9322 crore during the 11th Five Year Plan, of which the central share is Rs.7457 crore. Requirement for additional 1000 schools (current proposal) has been estimated to be Rs.3304 crore with the Central share of Rs.2478 crore. Thus the estimated Central share for establishing 3500 schools in the Government sector is Rs.9935 crore during the 11th Five Year Plan. 

Each school will have 560 students, the total beneficiary for 3500 schools therefore being 19.60 lakh students. The programme will be implemented through the societies set up by the State Governments for this purpose. 

The present proposal is meant for 3500 EBBs in 27 States/UTs, although the model school scheme will cover 6000 blocks in all States/UTs. 

The salient features of the Scheme are as follows: 

(i) Every EBB will be eligible for one model school under State Governments. 

(ii) These schools to have classes from VI to XII or from IX to XII. 

(iii) These schools to have norms and standards equal to or better than Kendriya Vidyalayas

(iv) Medium of instruction and affiliating board will be decided by the State Governments. 

(v) 75% of the recurring and non-recurring cost, subject to scheme norms, will be borne by the Central Government except for special category states, for which the sharing pattern is 90:10. 

The major impact of the scheme will be to open up access to quality secondary education to talented rural students. The scheme is expected to provide a major fillip to availability of good quality schools in rural areas, thereby nurturing talent in such areas. These schools are expected to act as pace-setting institutions and to have a demonstration effect on neighbouring schools.

April 24th, 2010

Odisha proposes upgradation of Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) to a national level institute of MSME

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard by Bishnu Das.

The state government, in its proposal, has proposed to convert the existing Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) at Bhubaneswar, a nodal agency of the Orissa government, to a national level institute for MSMEs. The proposed national institute for MSME would be in line with National Institute of Enterprise and Business Development, Noida, National Institute of MSME, at Hyderabad and Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship located at Guwahati. Since the Union government plans to set up three such new centres in the country, the state government intends to cash in on the opportunity. The state government has offered to provide the infrastructure including land belonging to IED for setting up this institute.

1 comment April 20th, 2010

Regional Institute of Education Mysore offers 6 yrs M.Sc Ed integrated program. What about RIE Bhubaneswar?

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

The MSC Ed, an integrated six-year course (12 semesters), introduced in 2008 is the right way to master teaching skills. Offering quality teacher education programmes is the Regional Institute of Education that include innovative pre-service and in-service teacher training programmes and relevant research, development and extension activities.

The institute started as Regional College of Education in 1963, changed the name in 1994. It is one of the five such institutions established by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi. The other institutes are located at Ajmer, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar and Shilong.

Prior to the six-year course, there was a two-year MSC Ed course for those who had completed BSC Ed, said Regional Institute of Education Principal GT Bhandage. "It had a good response and the students from all over the country would appear for the entrance exam. This course was conceived essentially to meet the demand of the higher secondary level in specific subjects like physics, chemistry and mathematics. Students who have passed out from this course were absorbed by Navodaya and Kendriya Vidyalaya," added Bhandage.

In 2008, MSC Ed course was introduced after completion of II PUC or equivalent. The idea was to catch them young and train them with pedagogic skills and develop adequate content competency crucial to a teacher education programme, said Bhandage.

The six years integrated course is a combination of BSc and MSC. The first four years, students study physics, chemistry and mathematics while in fifth and final year they can choose a specialization subject.

After completion of the course one can get into Higher Secondary Schools or can do research.

… The admissions are made on all India basis through an entrance exam. The selection will be based on the performance in the qualifying exam and entrance exam.

For details log on to www.riemysore.ac.in or call 514515/ 2514095.

RIE Mysore has a website at www.riemysore.ac.in. I have not been able to find a web site for RIE Bhubaneswar. I wonder if RIE Bhubaneswar offers such a course.


Considering the implementation of RTE, there is a big need for more and better trained teachers and educational administrators (headmasters, principals, vice-principals, etc.). To achieve that the government of India should upgrade the RIEs to National Institutes of Education and make them Institutions of National Importance. This will attract the attention of more good students towards a teaching and teaching administration career. The government should incraese the number of seats and number of programs in these institutes and intrdoce programs for creating top-notch Educational administrators.

1 comment April 14th, 2010

Eleven new Central Schools to come up in Odisha

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph

The association’s board of governors has recommended the feasibility of 78 more Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV) as part of the process initiated by the HRD ministry for expanding the network of such central schools during the 11th plan period. The feasibility report included two KVs in Cuttack along with nine others across Orissa to address the educational needs of children of central government employees who are frequently transferred.

At present, there are 36 KVs in Orissa. While nine schools are in the project and defence sectors, the rest are in the civil sector.

The existing 36 Kendriya Vidyalayas are listed in http://kvsrobbs.org/DirectorKVs.html. As per that list the latest ones established in 2007 are in Rayagada, Parlakhemundi, Boudh, Malkangiri, Nawrangpur, Kandhamal, and Bhadrak. So the districts in Odisha that do not yet have Central Schools are: 

  • Deogarh
  • Jajpur
  • Kendrapada
  • Nayagarh
  • Nuapada
  • Sonepur

I hope the new ones will cover these districts.

See our earlier articles on this topic at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/556, https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/550 and https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/227.

1 comment April 9th, 2010

DST increases stipends for research fellows and research associates

Following is from http://www.dst.gov.in/whats_new/whats_new10/fellowship10.pdf.Thanks to a reader for the pointer.

2 comments April 8th, 2010

Vocational programs to go mainstream

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard.

… The HRD Ministry is set to revise its vocational education scheme under which the students will have the option to pursue vocational studies as an exclusive stream on par with arts, science and commerce.

The revised scheme, modelled on the pattern of vocational education in Australia and Germany, is expected to be announced next month.

"Students can study exclusively vocational education at Class-XI and XII. This will be an additional stream to the existing streams of science, arts and commerce," a senior Ministry official told PTI.

The focus of the revised vocational education stream will be industry collaboration at all stages, starting with designing of the courses, teaching and work experience in industry.

It will ensure employability of the students. Students can join any job or pursue further studies in professional courses like B.Tech after completing vocational courses.

… The vocational stream will offer a number of courses in areas like hospitality, automobile sector, paramedics, cooking, truck driving, manufacturing, graphics designing and animation, the official said.

Under vocational stream, the programmes will comprise 70 per cent of subject specific studies and 30 per cent general studies like English and communicative skills.

The revised scheme will be implemented across the country with 100 per cent Central assistance. The government has earmarked Rs 2,000 crore in the 11th Plan for this scheme. The Ministry is preparing a note for approval of Expenditure Finance Committee. Then it will go for Cabinet’s approval.

This is a great direction. When mainstream colleges start offering vocational courses and these programs have tie-up with industries that hire the graduates in apprentice positions with good prospects, the stigma associated with vocational programs in the mind of a typical middle class family in India would significantly reduce.

2 comments April 6th, 2010

Libraries in Odisha

The following list is from http://hkmsl.gov.in/listoflibraries.htm.

Continue Reading 2 comments March 29th, 2010

Jharkhand proactive with its public sectors for medical colleges; Odisha should learn from it

(Thanks to http://www.rourkelacity.com/rdf/showthread.php?p=41#post41 for the pointer.) Following is an excerpt from a report in Ranchi Express.

State Health Minister Baithnath Ram on Monday informed the Assembly that approval letters have been sent to HEC, Ranchi and SAIL, Bokaro to start medical colleges at Ranchi and Bokaro respectively. About 250 students will be admitted in each medical college, Minister said.

Note that HEC Ranchi is a Government of India enterprise. 


We have said this earlier but is worth repeating. Odisha must push the central public sectors that have large operations in Odisha, especially the ones that either use Odisha minerals, pollute Odisha or both to establish medical colleges in Odisha. So far they have pursued this strategy with MCL which has promised a medical college in Talcher. 

Odisha government should immediately pursue with the other such public sectors.

  • SAIL Rourkela should be pushed for a medical college in Rourkela.
  • NALCO should be pushed for a medical college in one of the places it operates in Odisha.
  • NTPC should be pushed for a medical college.

They should also do that with respect to some of the private sectors that have been using Odisha minerals. This includes:

  • Tatas in the Kalinganagar area.
  • Birlas in the Barbil area.

Some of our earlier articles on this topic:

14 comments March 17th, 2010

300 page 6.2 MB UGC Report of the HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA Issues Related to Expansion, Inclusiveness, Quality and Finance.

The link is http://www.ugc.ac.in/pub/report/12.pdf. This was published in November 2008 with 500 printed copies. Its been recently put in the UGC website at number 12 in the page http://www.ugc.ac.in/pub/.

This 300 page document has all kinds of data on higher education in India and is a must read for anyone interested in higher education vis-a-vis India.

An Expressbuzz report by Sanjeev Patro tries to distill out some data with respect to Odisha from the above document. It is a good start and it made me look for the original document (Thanks), but I think a more careful analysis is needed.

March 1st, 2010

22 new Polytechs, 91 new ITIs and 415 new Skill Development Centers to come up in Odisha

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard on the 22 new polytechs.

… These polytechnics would come up in those districts which are not yet served by the government polytechnics. The districts include Boudh Gajapati, Nabarangpur, Bolangir, Kalahandi, Koraput, Kandhamal, Mayurbhanj and Balasore to name a few.

… It may be noted that 13 government engineering schools and polytechnics are already functioning in Orissa under the state industries department.

… A single patch of land spread over 10 acres has already been identified by the state government in each of the districts.

Out of Rs 12.3 crore sanctioned for each polytechnic, Rs eight crore will be spent on civil works and Rs 4.3 crore will be spent on equipment, machinery, furniture and learning resource material.

With the opening of these 22 polytechnics, every district in the state will have at least government polytechnic providing quality education.

Following is excerpt from a different report in Business Standard on the 91 new ITIs and 415 new Skill Development Centers (SDCs).

The Ministry of Labour and Employment of the Government of India has decided to set up 91 new ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) and 415 Skill Development Centres (SDCs) in Orissa on the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

While the Orissa government would provide basic infrastructural support for these ITIs and SDCs including free land with proper power, water and road connectivity, the Centre would provide Viability Gap Funding.

The proposed ITI s would have a strength of 250 trainees per shift running about 10 demand driven trades. An estimated Rs six crore would be spent towards infrastructural development on each of these ITI s.

The proposed SDCs would be smaller centres of vocational training with seating capacity of about 300 persons per shift per annum to meet the skill training needs of the locals.

About Rs 50 lakh would be invested on equipment and machineries for these SDCs.

Expressions of Interest would be invited from the training providers to operationalize these proposed ITI s and SDCs on the PPP mode.

… About 3-5 acres of land need to be identified for the establishment of ITI s at the unrepresented block headquarters while 500 sq m of land is needed for setting up the SDC at the gram panchayat headquarters.

Moreover, the Government of India has decided to upgrade 1396 government ITI s across the country on the PPP mode through an interest free loan of Rs 2.5 crore.

Nine ITI s in the state at Puri, Cuttack, Chhatrapur, Umerkote, Barbil, Dhenkanal, Barbil, Baripada, Baripada and Malkangiri are covered under this initiative.

February 26th, 2010

CIPET adds two exclusive R & D hubs: One of them, Laboratory for Advance Research in Polymeric Materials (LARPM), established in Bhubaneswar

The advertisement http://www.cipet.gov.in/pdfs/advt.2010.pdf mentions that CIPET is upgrading its centers to High Learning Centers to impart B.Tech, M.Tech and Ph.D programs with exclusive R & D hubs ARSTPS & LARPM. (Note: I think LARPM was the first R & D hub to be created by CIPET and was mentioned in a Jan 2009 PIB report. But both were also mentioned in a May 2008 Economic Times article.)

As per http://www.cipet.gov.in/research.html:

Technology innovation through dedicated research work by a Core team has been the philosophy of CIPET, which led to the establishment of 02 R&D centres – Laboratory for Advance Research in polymeric Materials (LARPM) & Advance Research School for Technology & Product simulation (ARSTPS) at CIPET Bhubaneswar & Chennai respectively. …

The vision for these R&D Centres have been conceived with objectives of transforming CIPET as a Global research Centre on Polymeric Materials as well as a Resource centre for newer concept development & conversion of concept into reality by Product development on commercial scales. Technology transfer, creation of Intellectual Property (IP), knowledge base with validated documentation would be the key aspects of functioning of R&D entities.

The significance of LARPM & ARSTPS is evident from the fact that they will be chaired by Director General and functioning independently under the Technology & Business development department of Corporate Office. The targets for both R&D centres have been set to pursue the objectives in mission mode. The experienced & competent faculties have been drawn from the existing pool of CIPET along with newly inducted researchers.

Operating model of LARPM & ARSTPS would be influenced with 03 “Rs”- Relevance to industry needs, Result-oriented output, Resourceful base to operate as ‘Centre of excellence”. It is worth mentioning that LARPM has already been sanctioned 03 sponsored projects from Funding agencies of Govt. of India. Similarly, ARSTPS has already initiated industry sponsored projects for Automotive, Medical & Aerospace Industries.

The identified focus areas of LARPM & ARSTPS are as follows:

   
     
 
 
 
     
 
Biopolymers   Innovative Product Design for Medical, Automobile, Aerospace and Packaging Industries
 
     
 
Polymer Composites & Nanocomposites   Product and Tool Design Conceptualization (modeling, analysis, process optimization & simulation approach )
 
     
 
Functional Plastics, Carbon nanotubes  

E- Manufacturing of Prototypes.

 
     
 

Polymer Membranes, Conducting polymers

 

Reverse Engineering for metal and conventional
material substitution.

 
     
 
Development & Characterization of Engg.
Polymers, Blends/Alloys
 
 
     
 
Fuel Cells    

The home page of LARPM is http://cipet.gov.in/cipetr&d/. As per http://cipet.gov.in/pdfs/research.pdf there are already 5 students pursuing Ph.D at LARPM. Following are concept drawings of their upcoming building.


The 2010-2011 admission ad shows the B.tech and M.tech programs that will be offered in 2010-2011. The program that will be offered at CIPET Bhubaneswar are:

  • B.Tech in Plastics Engineering/Technology (Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Chennai , Lucknow, Haldia – proposed)
  • B.Tech in Manufacturing Engineering & Technology – proposed (Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Lucknow)
  • M.Tech in Plastics Engineering/Technology (Bhubaneswar, Chennai , Lucknow, Hajipur)
  • M.Tech in Polymer Nano Technology (LARPM – Bhubaneswar)
  • M.Sc M.Tech in Material Science &  Engineering (Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Lucknow).

The only program not listed to be offered at Bhubaneswar, but offered elsewhere, is

  • M.Engg in CAD CAM (ARSTPS – Chennai)

Besides the above; all the 15 CIPET centers offer the following diplomas and PG Diplomas:

  • Diploma in Plastic mould technology (3 yrs)
  • Diploma in Plastics technology (3 yrs)
  • PG Diploma in plastic mould design (1 yrs)
  • PG Diploma in plastic processing & testing (1.5 yrs)

Finally, the Mancheswar branch of CIPET offers the following programs:

  • ITI-Fitter, ITI-Electrician, ITI-IT&ESM and ITI-Welder
  • and various short term courses and CAD/CAM courses.

From the above it looks like CIPET Chennai and Bhubaneswar are among the leaders.  However neither Odisha nor Tamil Nadu have a NIPER. (The original NIPER is near Mohali and Chandigarh.  As part of the 11th plan, new NIPERs were made in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Hajipur, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Rae Bareli.) I hope Odisha pursues and gets one during the next five year plan.

1 comment February 20th, 2010

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