Building Berhampur as a Higher Education destination

R.P.Tripathy

Berhampur city has many advantages as a place to emerge as a future higher education destination of Eastern India. To name a few, apart from being the third largest city in Odisha, Berhampur happens to be the commercial nerve centre of South Odisha and KBK regions. Interestingly it caters to the needs of a couple of districts of Andhra Pradesh as well. Further, Berhampur is the biggest city with a port in the state of Odisha. The City has one of the oldest colleges of Eastern India with Khallikote College nearing 150 years of its establishment. Berhampur University and MKCG Medical College have helped Berhampur emerge as a higher education destination of the State. Recently many private engineering colleges have come up in the City along with the Parala Maharaja Engineering College. Yet, the City has failed to get any of the centrally funded Institutes so far, despite the fact that it has got excellent rail and road transport infrastructure in the state apart from moderate weather conditions. Certain demands and suggestions have been made recently from different quarters that are likely to make Berhampur one of the leading destinations for higher education. This will not only help in the growth of the City, but also the vast under developed region of Southern Orissa and KBK. Following are some of the suggestions to build Berhampur as a destination for higher education;

·Declaration of Berhampur-Bhubaneswar knowledge corridor to develop Berhampur as a national level higher education cluster
·Establishment of Indian Institute of Information Technology (I.I.I.T)
·Khallikote College must be upgraded as an Unitary University
·Establishment of one of the state funded professional Universities like Health University or Management University or a second Agricultural University of the State
·One national level research lab of CSIR, DRDO or DAE
·Establishment of the National Institute of Design (NID)
·Establishment of the earlier announced Indian Institute of Labour (IIL) Studies on the lines of VV Giri Labour Institute, NOIDA
·A branch of the National maritime University at Gopalpur.
·Establishment of the Marine Biotech Park at Gopalpur.
·Upgradation of MKCG Medical college into a national level medical college and research centre
·The JN Tata Technical Education Centre to be upgraded as a national level technical institute on the lines of BIT.
·The Ministry of Defense College at Gopalpur to be upgraded as a Defense University and the establishment of AFMC under the University
·Establishment of Sugar Research Institute at Aska and Salt Research Institute at Huma.
·Completion of the STPI and IT Park projects near the City.

Finally, the formation of the Greater Berhampur metropolitan area is of critical importance in bringing the above mentioned Institutes to the City. There is strong justification for the merger of nearby towns like Chatrapur, Gopalpur, Hinjilicut and many villages located close to the City under Berhampur Municipal Corporation. There is also a strong case for developing the Airstrip near Bhanja Vihar as a domestic airport under the PPP route or in collaboration with the Ministry of Defense. The sooner this is done, the better it will be for the future growth of Berhampur and will also give a fillip in making Berhampur a higher education destination in Eastern India by 2020.