Sambalpur, June 20: A four-member committee today arrived here to ascertain suitability of the sites identified by the state government to set up the permanent and temporary campuses of the proposed Indian Institute management (IIM).

The team, which arrived five days earlier than scheduled, visited two of the sites suggested for locating the permanent and temporary campuses of the proposed B-school here. The committee includes Union ministry of human resource development's joint secretary Pravin Kumar, professor of IIM Indore, which is the mentor institute of the proposed IIM in Odisha, Pawan Singh, state technical education and training department's principal secretary Asit Tripathy and the central public works department's chief engineer Umesh Mishra.

Kumar said they would visit all the proposed sites suggested for the campuses and prepare a report, which would be submitted to the ministry of human resource development.

The state government has identified land at Brahmanipali in Rengali block, Basantpur near Goshala in Dhankauda block and Neeldungri at Jujomura block of the district as the probable sites for permanent campus. Similarly, it has identified three campuses, Government Polytechnic, Rengali, Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology, Burla and Silicon Institute of Technology, Sason for locating the IIM's temporary campus.

The committee today visited the sites at Basantpur in Goshala and the Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology. Tomorrow they will visit the other sites, identified by the state government. Senior officials of the district administration accompanied the team during the site visit today.

Earlier, the state government had recommended setting up of the proposed IIM on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar. But later, it recommended Sambalpur after the human resource development minister Smriti Irani had sought its opinion on Sambalpur as the probable site for setting up of the institute.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had written a letter to the Union minister in this regard. The state government had also submitted a report to the ministry on June 5 on the sites, availability of infrastructure in Sambalpur, existence of well-known business establishments and mega industries, communication network and facilities for the IIM staff members here.