You have to hand it to the residents of Loliem. They seem to be the only ones asking relevant questions about the establishment of an IIT in their village on 12 lakh sq mts of land that after the monsoon appears to be lush green and not barren as claimed. Ever since Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar announced that an IIT would be built in this faraway village in Canacona taluka and the central government earmarked Rs 100 crore for its development, the residents have been asking a simple question “ how does an IIT benefit Loliem and Goa? There are no easy answers to this question, but there is a lot of propaganda, half-truths and perhaps, a few lies.
The manner in which State governments start national institutions is rather strange. The general pattern is that the institution is launched in Farmagudi (NIT had a similar birth), then the government starts scouting for land and the process gets delayed because of opposition from locals who were never taken into confidence in the first place. The IIT seems to be following the same route and this is one of the reasons why the people of Loliem are agitated. Announcements are made in Panaji, but no information is handed to the panchayat for dissemination. In this case, the panchayat went out of its way to prevent any discussion at the gram sabha, a move which has fueled more suspicion.
The questions that remain unanswered at this stage is, what is the rationale behind locating an IIT in the State? Is the government attempting to build an education hub? If that is the case, is there any master plan on how the government hopes to build this hub? What is the definition of an education hub? What are the aims and objectives of this education hub? Or is the IIT being built for prestige?
Another dimension to this problem is the fact that the sons and daughters of Loliem who were forced to move out are backing the project because they believe it will spur economic development (there is no study to prove this hypothesis) whereas those who stayed back are apprehensive for many reasons, the primary one being the lack of information. Even the sarpanch appears to be in the dark and a recent missive from the South Collector stated that no decision had been taken.
There is a dearth of information on the issue but the burden of explaining how the IIT fits into the State’s larger economic plans lies with the government. Since institutions of this nature are self-contained it is difficult for common people to understand the backward linkages to the village, if they exist. Unlike the NIT where 50 per cent of the seats are reserved for locals, IITs make no such concession, so how are local students going to benefit? Also, since entry to IITs is based on a ranking system there is no guarantee that all Goa-based students would get into the institution here.
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before 12 lakh sq mts of land is pledged to an institution whose benefits are yet to be listed.
