Gurugram: The Haryana government has begun preparations to set up the state’s first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) following directives from the Centre.
Praveen Attrey, the media secretary to Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, confirmed to ThePrint that the Haryana government has received a communication from the Centre that the plan to establish an IIT in the state has been approved.
Speaking to ThePrint, Attrey said the government has begun the process of spadework for the project, which will be started “as soon as possible”.
He said that the government has yet to finalise the location of the proposed institute and that the project would require the acquisition of 300 acres of land.
The Haryana government has written to all deputy commissioners to check the availability of land for the project in their respective districts.
India has 23 IITs, and, among Haryana’s immediate neighbouring states, there is one in Ropar, Punjab; Mandi, Himachal Pradesh; Jodhpur, Rajasthan; Roorkee, Uttarakhand; Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh; and Delhi.
Once set up, this will be the first IIT in Haryana.
The idea was first floated by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Naveen Jindal. He raised a demand to set up an IIT in his parliamentary constituency, Kurukshetra, during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha on 19 March.
In a post on X that day, he said, “In the Lok Sabha’s Zero Hour, I urged the Hon’ble Education Minister to establish IIT Kurukshetra—a step that will empower our youth, drive technological progress, and honour Haryana’s rich legacy. The state government is ready, the students are waiting—let’s make it happen!”
CM Saini’s assembly constituency, Ladwa, also falls under the Kurukshetra parliamentary constituency.
Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan is also the Haryana BJP in-charge.
BJP MPs lobby for IIT
Meanwhile, Haryana BJP MPs, including some Rajya Sabha members, have started lobbying to ensure that the IIT is established in their parliamentary constituencies, a source in the state BJP told ThePrint.
Of the ten Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, five are represented by BJP MPs—Manohar Lal Khattar (Karnal), Rao Inderjit Singh (Gurugram), Krishan Pal Gurjar (Faridabad), Dharamveer Singh (Bhiwani-Mahindragrah), and Naveen Jindal (Kurukshetra).
Of the five Rajya Sabha seats, four—Kiran Choudhry, Rekha Sharma, Subhash Barala and Ram Chander Jangra—are with the BJP, while the fifth is held by Independent Kartikeya Sharma, who supports the BJP. His mother, Shakti Rani Sharma, is the BJP MLA from the Kalka Vidhan Sabha seat.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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