NIT Rourkela allocated a 15-acre plot for both the boys’ and girls’ hostels. Presently, the institute plans to use half of the area for a boys’ hostel with a capacity of 1000 and three fourth of the area for three girls’ hostels, each with an accommodation capacity of 500 students. The remaining area is being kept aside for future hostel construction. Among the three girls’ hostels, one is funded by Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) with Rs. 42.69 Cr. under their CSR activity. The other girl’s hostel is funded by the Ministry of Education under the EWS scheme fund. The rest of the project, costing 165.81 Cr. will be completed with the support of HEFA (Higher Education Financing Agency).
NIT Rourkela has the reservation of a minimum of 20% seats for girls in each of the disciplines. Currently, the number of girls in the Undergraduate (UG) Programme is 960, in Post Graduate (PG) Programme is 420, and in PhD is 503.; presently 8000 students are studying at NIT Rourkela.
He also announced Kendriya Vidyalaya-NIT Rourkela, which will be third in the city and will be supported by Coal India. Kendriya Vidyalaya in NITR will offer several compelling benefits by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between school and faculty, potentially leading to innovative educational programs sparking interest and providing clarity about potential career paths.
Speaking on the occasion the minister said, “NIT, Rourkela is the glory of our country. 8 thousand students from India and abroad are studying in this educational institution. More than 3 thousand students of Odisha are studying here. Students of NIT Rourkela have become successful citizens abroad. More than 2500 students will benefit from the projects unveiled today. Apart from this, there were 2 KVs in Rourkela earlier, today it is a matter of happiness that KV-NIT Rourkela will be the third KV.”
Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao, Director, NIT Rourkela said, “One of the primary objectives of NEP-2020 is to eliminate any disparity in access to education for children of all communities or other socio-economically disadvantaged groups. Towards this NIT Rourkela, through Kendriya Vidyalaya, is aiming to provide high-quality education for all. we do believe that the residential facilities for the students have to be the best, within the available resources and thus we are creating these infra projects at the campus”.
The efforts of NIT Rourkela towards social welfare in the interest of nation was also appreciated by Jual Oram (Member of Parliament, Sundargarh, Odisha, and Chairperson, Parliamentary Committee on Defiance) who requested NIT Rourkela to collaborate with the Incubation Centre running in the city, which provides free of cost training to the tribal students in high-pressure welding, carpentry, fashion technology etc.
The event was followed by taking oath and participating in the live broadcast of the ‘Viksit Bharat SankalpYatra”; a mega outreach campaign aimed at highlighting government of India schemes.