Union cabinet approves permanent campus for IISER-Berhampur

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved establishment and operationalisation of two new permanent campuses of the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and Berhampur in Odisha.

The construction of the two campuses shall be completed by December 2021. The total cost likely to be incurred is Rs 3074.12 crore, out of which 2366.48 crore will be spent for construction of permanent campuses of these institutes, said a statement.

The cabinet approved Rs 1582.78 crore for IISER-Berhampur and Rs 1491.34 crore for IISER-Tirupati.

The creation of two posts of Registrar, one in each IISER, has also been approved. Both the IISERs will be constructed in an area of 1,17,000 sqm which will have complete infrastructural facilities for 1,855 students each.

The IISERs will provide top quality science education at the Under-Graduate and Post-Graduate levels, PHDs & Integrated PHDs.  They will carry out research in frontier areas of science.

They will enable India to move towards being a knowledge economy by attracting the best scientific talent as faculty and prepare a strong base of scientific manpower in India, the statement said.

In 2015, IISER, Tirupati was established in pursuance to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, while IISER, Berhampur was established in 2016 in pursuance to the announcement made by the Union Finance Minister in his Budget speech, 2015.

These institutes are presently functioning from transit campuses.