Union HRD approves Dhaula Kuan site for IIM

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 25

The first academic session of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Sirmour is likely to begin this July as the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has approved a 1,010 bigha site near Dhaula Kuan.

A letter in this regard was received by the Technical Education Department here today. It was on March 12 that a Central team had inspected various sites in and around Paonta Sahib for the IIM. The letter, written by Shailendra Kumar, Director, Management, HRD, has also given permission for renting the vacant premises of a private engineering college in Paonta Sahib for starting classes this year.

Since the 1,010 bigha land belongs to the state Agriculture Department, there will be no hitches and the process for transferring the land in the name of the IIM would be completed within a short period, said officials.

Construction work is likely to begin soon as no forest clearance is required as the proposed site does not lie in any forest area.

Classes for the first batch of 60 students are likely to begin from July in the rented accommodation. Construction of the campus in Dhaula Kuan is likely to take a few years.

The three-member Central team that had inspected the site was headed by Shashi Prakash Goyal, along with Joint Secretary, HRD, Prof Ashish Nanda, Director, IIM-Ahmedabad, and Prof Bharat Bhaskar, Task Force Head from IIM-Lucknow. The other site, measuring about 900 bighas, had also been inspected by the Central team.

It was last year that the Centre had announced an IIM for Himachal. Among the national-level institutes, the state now has a Central University at Kangra, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Mandi, NIFT at Hamirpur, an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Una and an AIIMS-like medical institute to be set up at Bilaspur.