** This site was initially made in 2008 when information about IIT Bhubaneswar was scarce. Although some minor updates have been made and this site has some valuable information on Odisha and Bhubaneswar, please visit the Official Site for more up-to-date and official information on IIT Bhubaneswar and the blog of one of the first batch student for the student viewpoint. **

A new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) [official home page, project report, 2008 circular, 2008 press note, 2008 counseling brochure, 2008 annexure, 2009 Counseling brochure] was established (in 2008) in Bhubaneswar (FAQ), the vibrant, modern, capital city of Orissa. It is among the six new IITs that started classes in 2008. (The others are: IIT Hyderabad, IIT Patna, IIT Rajasthan, IIT Punjab and IIT Gandhinagar.) Two other new IITs were established in Indore and Himachal Pradesh in 2009. In 2009 the foundation stone of IIT Bhubaneswar was laid and its official web page was unveiled.

This fledgling institution will be an important part of Bhubaneswar, a burgeoning, modern city in eastern India with a metropolitan population of 19 lakhs. It has all the amenities of a world-class metropolis: wide roads, luxury hotels, malls, restaurants, clubs, bookshops, museums, gardens, water parks and fountains. A picturesque city with boulevards, gardens and beautifully painted walls, Bhubaneswar seems to have it all, minus the traffic, water problems, power cuts and the mega slums that dot most cities of India. It is well connected to the rest of the country by air, rail, and road. The IIT Bhubaneswar will be located close to the Khurda Rd station, and very close to the NISER location. Having the science institute NISER (that aims to become an IISc) and IIT Bhubaneswar close to each other would bring in a unique synergy.

However, for the next few years, while the new campus gets established, and after the first batch have spent their first year at the mentor institute IIT Kharagpur, classes of IIT Bhubaneswar will be temporarily held in the Bhubaneswar extension center of IIT Kharagpur. This place is located in one of the prime spots of Bhubaneswar, next to many top hotels (Trident Oberoi, Mayfair Lagoon, Swosti Plaza, Ginger and Pal Heights) with their nice restaurants, very close to the Pal Heights mall with a Spencers and an Oxford book store, next to the Mahatma Gandhi Park, about 1500 meters from the Kalinga stadium and its amenities (such as pools), close to the ESI and Kalinga Hospitals, and also very close to several top institutes such as IMMT (Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology), Institute of Physics (also the temporary location of NISER), Institute of Life Sciences, and Xaviers Institute of Business Management.

Further away, many of Orissa’s famed temples dot the Bhubaneswar landscape, and world famous attractions such as UNESCO world heritage site Konark, Puri beach, and Chilika lake and bird sanctuary are about an hour away. Bhubaneswar is one of India’s major tourist hubs with history and geography right by its side. The Rock edicts of Ashoka are at one end of the city in Dhauli, right by the Daya river, while the picturesque Chandaka-Dampara sanctuary (see more pictures here), as big as Bhubaneswar itself, lies adjacent on the west bordering the mighty Mahanadi. To the north is the garden of the Gods, Nandankanan, and the Kathjodi river, separating Bhubaneswar from its twin, the millennium city of Cuttack.

With all major Indian software firms and some major BPO firms such as Infosys, Satyam, TCS, Wipro, Mindtree and Hexaware setting shop here, Bhubaneswar is also the eastern India’s IT hub. It is the East Coast Railway (ECOR) HQ and has headquarters of various private and public sector companies such as Navaratna NALCO, POSCO-India and Dhamara Port Company Ltd. Four major industrial clusters are about 100 kms from Bhubaneswar in each of the four directions: Kalinganagar to the North, Paradeep to the east, Chhatrapur to the South and Angul-Talcher to the west. With Orissa leading the country in investment, bagging 30 percent of the total investment in India in the last quarter (fourth quarter of 2007-08), mainly in the industrial and infrastructure sector, Bhubaneswar is abuzz with optimism.

Yet what sets Bhubaneswar apart is its rise to prominence as India’s foremost knowledge hub. The metropolitan area is already home to Utkal University, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Ravenshaw University, National Law University, Utkal University of Culture, KIIT Deemed University, Siksha `O' Anusandhan deemed University, Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), and an International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT). Existing research institutions in the Bhubaneswar metropolitan area include the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Life Sciences, the Institute of Mathematics and Applications, the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, the Central Rice Research Institute, the Central Institute of Fresh Water Aquaculture, Regional Plant Resources Center and the Regional Medical Research Center.

Several national level institutes have recently been established or are being established in Bhubaneswar. Besides IIT Bhubaneswar, they include the National Institute of Science, Education and Research (NISER), which is equivalent to the IISERs but funded by the DAE, and which took its first batch of students in 2007, an AIIMS, and a centrally funded Innovation University (aiming to be of world class standard). At present Bhubaneswar is the only city in India that is scheduled to have an IIT, a science institute (NISER) and a National University; a IIIT and an AIIMS-like institute are additional pluses. In addition, the Anil Agarwal foundation is establishing Vedanta University in Puri, which is about 40 kms from the outer edges of Bhubaneswar. It has a budget of $3 Billion (Rs. 15,000 crores) and includes a personal pledged donation of $1 Billion (Rs 5,000 crores) by Mr. Anil Agarwal. Vedanta University is envisioned to be India’s answer to Stanford and Harvard. Other universities that are coming up in the Bhubaneswar area include ICFAI University, Sri Sri University, Jagadguru Kripalu University for Spiritual Sciences and Orissa Open University. At the college level, the Bhubaneswar area has 60+ engineering colleges with many other in the pipeline and four existing medical colleges (SCB, KIIT, SUM, Hi-Tech) with several more in the pipeline.

IIT Bhubaneswar took in students in three disciplines in 2008: civil engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. In case one may wonder, why civil engineering, instead of computer science that four of the other new IITs are having, one just needs to think of China and Beijing and imagine how far India has to go in terms of infrastructure development and the role of civil engineers in that development. This interview with Anil Agarwal is illuminating in that respect. (He also talks about his vision of Vedanta University.) However, in the near future (around 2012) IIT Bhubaneswar will admit students in other disciplines.

IIT Bhubaneswar students were housed in IIT Kharagpur for the first year, which is the mentoring institution of IIT Bhubaneswar for a period of three years. During their stay these students gained exposure to the established academic and cultural environment of the largest and oldest IIT, which they brought home to IIT Bhubaneswar.

The Orissa government is extremely supportive of IIT Bhubaneswar and has committed to provide 935 acres of land so as to accommodate future growth of this IIT. The 935 acres is a little less than double the 500 acres required by the central government, and almost double the size of the other new IITs. Thus IIT Bhubaneswar will be the largest IIT among the new ones. With the inherent advantages in terms of its location (next to NISER); as the heart of a rapidly growing and industrializing city and state; surrounded and to be driven to excellence by the competition from NISER, Innovation University (aiming to be of world class standard) and Vedanta University; and a supportive state government that has put Bhubaneswar in the path of making it the knowledge-hub of the country; IIT Bhubaneswar holds the promise of being the best among the new IITs and becoming one of India’s upper echelon IITs within a few years!

Watch out this site and the accompanying blog for more information on IIT Bhubaneswar.

Chitta Baral and Sanjoy Das.