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Centre to give Rs 150 crore for Nano City, IISER
THE Centre has earmarked Rs 150 crore for the development of Nano City and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in the Knowledge City at Mohali. In a meeting held between officials from the Central department of science and technology and their counterparts in Punjab, it was decided that both the institutes, funded by the Centre, would officially begin operations by October. “The institutes will begin functioning by October this year but we are planning that the institutes would begin functioning from an existing facility and then be moved to the Knowledge City once the infrastructure is ready,” said Punjab state secretary Science and Technology AS Chhatwal. Nearly 35 acres and 125-130 acres for the Nano City and IISER respectively have been acquired by Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, that are waiting to be transferred to the GOI such the development can begin. “The land has been acquired by GMADA and the areas for external development have been demarcated. The total area will be transferred to the centre for development soon,” added Mr Chhatwal. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has directed GMADA to begin proceedings of transferring the combined 160-acres area to GOI at the earliest. According to Punjab chief secretary R I Singh, the three institutes in the Knowledge City-Nano City, IISER and Bio-Technology City have already commenced operation from a temporary accommodation in the State Institute of Public Administration. However, for the bio-tech city, which will be developed by the department of bio-technology, no meetings have been held so far. Earlier, the ministry of biotechnology was to fund the 80-acre biotech park out of the total 400 acres making up the entire Knowledge City situated in Sector 81 of Mohali. As a proposed model, the biotech park would have industrial and business units that would be leased out to private companies further helping in generating revenues. Mr Ramasami, from the Centre’s behalf, said it would make all necessary clearances in this regard shortly to initiate the construction work by the months of May-June this year and it would take 18 months to complete the entire project. Mr Ramasami was accompanied by joint secretary Sanjiv Nair, adviser A Mukhopadhyay and adviser and head Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) V Rao Aiyagari.