Work on campus of Amritsar IIM to begin from October 7
: Punjab’s only Indian Institute of Management (IIM) awarded to Amritsar, which is being run on a temporary campus for the past four years, will soon get its own campus as the institute authorities have decided to organise a ‘groundbreaking ceremony’ for starting the construction of the permanent campus on October 7.
The authorities will start the construction of much-awaited IIM campus soon after the groundbreaking ceremony on the 60-acre land allotted on the Amritsar-Jalandhar road at Manawala. The land was acquired during the SAD-BJP regime in 2015. The possession of the land at Manawala village, for the country’s 15th IIM, was handed over to the IIM Society on June 18, 2016.
The institute established in 2015 is still being run in the building of Government Polytechnic College affiliated to Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar. As many as 250 IIM students are facing difficulties in the absence of the state-of-art campus.
The project was delayed due to a deadlock between the IIM management and state government for various reasons, including accomplishing formalities for the change of land use from the town planning department. The authorities had earlier set 2022 as the tentative deadline for the completion of the project.
The authorities, so far, had only constructed boundary walls at the site.
“The groundbreaking ceremony will pave the way for the construction of lush green permanent campus of the IIM. The campus will also provide all the state-of-art facilities to the students for best learning and on-campus living experiences. The campus will be constructed in three phases,” said Mukesh Kumar, public relations in-charge, IIM Amritsar .
Kumar said the construction for the first phase will begin in October. Under the first phase, infrastructure development for faculty and administration, auditorium, library, academic block and faculty residences will come up, he said.
The authorities, however, did not mention any expected date of completion of the project. As per the sources, the tentative cost of the IIM campus was estimated to be ₹671 crore.