Noor Mohammad, State secretary of Janata Dal (United), alleged that the report submitted to Union Human Resources Development Ministry (MHRD) on the site selection for Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Karnataka was biased towards Dharwad.
He was addressing a media conference at the Reporters Guild here on Thursday, after releasing the 11-page report submitted by MHRD’s site selection committee for IIT in Karnataka.
“Raichur is well-connected by road, rail and air considering the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Hyderabad International Airport. There is availability of land and water resources. The site selection committee deliberately downplayed the existing infrastructure and resources in its report,” he alleged.
KIADB land
He also said that he would file a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court not only on the basis of connectivity and infrastructure, but also on the State Cabinet resolution and subsequent letter to the Prime Minister in 2012 proposing Raichur as a location for the premier institute.
“The land shown in Dharwad for a permanent campus of IIT is owned by Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB). As per the norms, KIADB land cannot be shown for IIT. I will contend this also in the court,” he said.
He said that the site for establishing IIT in Karnataka was decided well before the Centre’s site selection committee visited and evaluated all the three sites in the State. “The committee’s visit, evaluation and submission of report was just for procedure’s sake,” he said.
Shekhar Gowda, Mohammad Shafi, Hasrar Ali, Shaid, Razak, Haran and others were present.
A 11-page report submitted by the MHRD’s site selection committee for IIT in Karnataka
‘The committee’s visit, evaluation and submission of report was merely procedural’
