Patna,(BiharTimes): The Union Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani has reportedly agreed to the state government’s proposal to set up Indian Institute of Management on the campus of the Magadh University in Bodh Gaya. Classes are likely to start from this academic session, though no final words have yet come from the Centre.

The decision to open an IIM in Bihar was taken by the then Manmohan Singh government and the Centre had asked the state to provide 200 acres of land for this purpose.

State education minister Brishen Patel said on Wednesday after returning from New Delhi that the Centre had already appointed IIM-Indore as the mentor institute for IIM in Bihar.

Earlier, the Centre had appointed the IIM-Kolkata as mentor for IIM in Bihar but the IIM-Kolkata refused.
Patel was in New Delhi to attend the education ministers’ conference in New Delhi on Tuesday. IIM would come up on the vacant 600 acre land of Magadh University. The Bihar government had already taken consent from the Vice Chancellor of Magadh University for acquiring its 150 acre of vacant land for the IIM and the same had been communicated to the Centre.

Around Rs 900 crore would be spent on the establishment of IIM at Bodh Gaya. State education secretary R K Mahajan said the mentor institute would decide whether or not the admission process would start in July-August 2015. If so the state government would provide some existing MU buildings and other necessary infrastructure to begin the classes.

It needs to be recalled that in the last few years Gaya got Central University of Bihar and Officers’ Training Academy. Incidentally, the present chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi hails from Gaya and he too was interested in getting IIM in Bodh Gaya. In the past he had been MLA from Bodh Gaya too.