Young India is capable of accomplishing anything, said Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal, Minister for Education. "We are encouraging students, professionals to stay back and work in India rather than settling abroad. The new National Education Policy will help us with this by making our roots stronger. Stay in India should be our motive through which we can achieve our Prime Minister's vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The new NEP will bring in a new era in India's education — from access to assessment, inclusion to integration that will facilitate education right from the primary level to higher education in the country," he said while speaking at the e-inauguration on Tuesday of IIT Roorkee's new infrastructure including a lecture hall complex, centralised heating, ventilation, air conditioning plant (HVAC) and sewage treatment plant.
The union minister added that the new NEP will enable technology to be used effectively as the IITs have been leveraging to create innovations in the fight with COVID-19. "IIT Roorkee has proved themselves to be a pioneer in research even during these times of crisis. I congratulate academics, student and staff, who will ensure that IIT Roorkee is a global leader in the field of engineering education," he said.
The online inauguration event also witnessed the presence of Sanjay Dhotre, Union Minister of State for Education, Communication and Electronics and Information Technology, Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, Professor Manoranjan Parida, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee, Departments/Centres Deans, Associate Deans, Professor In Charge, Registrar, Joint Registrar, Deputy Registrar in IIT Roorkee.
Speaking during the event, Union Minister Sanjay Dhotre said, "IIT Roorkee has been imparting education rooted in the values of Bharat and churning out creative individuals. Education just doesn't mean knowledge but also enables rational thinking, scientific temper, values of empathy and the spirit of teamwork which will thus lead to Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat. The NEP 2020 enables our higher education system to be multi-disciplinary, provide high-quality education rooted in Indianness and envisions to make India a global knowledge superpower. IIT Roorkee has also been working on these lines and their efforts have been commendable."
IIT Roorkee Director Ajit K Chaturvedi also added that an Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Machine Learning committee will be set up soon for looking into fields and creation of courses around them.
The new infrastructure at IIT Roorkee includes the construction of the Lecture Hall Complex (LHC) that had started in 2016 and took four years to complete. It has a built-up area of 13,254 square metres with a total capacity of 4,400 persons. The second project is the centralised heating, ventilation, air conditioning system (HVAC) with a chilled water system. The highlight of this project is that it can be remote-controlled via the Building Management System (BMS). With a built-up area of 1,800 squares metres, the STP comprises a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) for the treatment of wastewater.
