Central committee inspects Farmagudi site for permanent IIT campus

Panaji: A six-member central site selection committee on Tuesday inspected a 4.5 lakh sqm land parcel at Farmagudi in Ponda taluka for the proposed permanent campus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Goa.A senior govt officer said the committee will submit its report after the inspection. If no objections are raised, state govt will transfer the land for the establishment of the campus.In April, chief minister Pramod Sawant announced that the permanent IIT Goa campus would be set up at Farmagudi. Following this, state govt invited the central site inspection committee to assess and finalise the location.According to officials, around 4.5 lakh sqm of land will be handed over in the first phase, while additional land will be transferred later based on the institute’s requirements.The Farmagudi proposal comes after state govt recently shortlisted two new sites and revisited an earlier option. The three locations under consideration include comunidade land at Usgao, the SEZ site at Keri in Ponda, and the former Sanjivani sugar factory site in Dharbandora.Govt had earlier dropped plans to establish the campus on over 14 lakh sqm of comunidade land at Codar in Ponda taluka following strong opposition from local residents.Operational since 2016, IIT Goa has been functioning from a temporary campus at Goa Engineering College in Farmagudi for nearly a decade. Multiple proposals for a permanent campus over the years either failed to secure approval from the Union education ministry’s site selection committee or triggered protests from local communities.Before shifting focus to Codar, govt had initiated land demarcation at the Sanjivani sugar factory site at Dharbandora. Officials said the site remains under consideration, although no final decision has been taken.Earlier, a proposal to establish the campus on nearly 10.5 lakh sqm of land at Rivona in Sanguem — approved by the Union education ministry in Jan 2024 — was shelved due to issues related to land title ownership.An earlier site in Sanguem was also rejected by Centre for being unsuitable for the project, while farmers in the area had raised objections, claiming cultivation rights over the land.The project had previously faced strong resistance at Melauli in Sattari as well. In Jan 2021, protests at the site escalated into clashes between demonstrators and police. Soon after, the chief minister, citing “people’s sentiments”, announced that the project would be relocated.