Agartala, June 8: Higher education in Tripura is all set to get a major boost, after the Union ministry of human resource development (HRD) decided to set up Northeast’s first Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Tripura.

The decision was communicated to the state’s school education minister Tapan Chakraborty during a high-level meeting held by the ministry in Delhi on June 5.

“HRD minister Kapil Sibal had said to me in the meeting that altogether 20 more IIITs will be set up in different parts of the country in the public-private-partnership (PPP) model. Of the five to be set up in the first phase, one will come up in Tripura,” said Chakraborty, while talking to reporters today at the state Secretariat.

At present, there are four IIITs — in Allahabad, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Kanchipuram.

The existing IIITs are imparting education at both undergaduate and post-graduate level in information technology and this will remain the same with the new IIITs also ; there is no need to say that Tripura in particular and northeast in general will immensely benefit from this in future� said Chakraborty.

For setting up IIITs Centre will provide relatively more financial assistance to northeastern region because of the problems of poverty and backwardness.

Each IIIT will require an investment of Rs 128 crores according to current cost level and of this 57.% will be provided by Centre, 35% by states and 7.5% by the participating private concern or industrial house ; that will be the formula for cost sharing in launching the IIITs in northeastern region ; even thought the first one will be set up in Tripura , in the coming years more IITs are sure to come in other parts of northeast� said Chakraborty.

He added that for setting up IIITs in states beyond northeast central government�s share in the expenditure will be 50% and private industrial house�s share will be 10% while the rest will have to be taken care of by states where the institutions will come up.

The union minister for HRD Kapil Sibal who chaired the last June 5 meeting pointed that India was emerging as a global player in information technology and IT industry was expanding rapidly with exponential growth in requirement of manpower, said Tapan Chakraborty. He quoted Sibal as stressing the fact that expansion of IT industry would need manpower and to take care of this requirement Centre had decided to launch more IIITs .

This will greatly boost up our infrastructure for higher education based on two medical colleges , one engineering college, NIT, nursing , paramedical and pharmaceutical and law college and other institutions of general education� said Tapan Chakraborty.