Pilot project of Discovery Park in Amethi to start soon

Lucknow, Oct 6 (UNI) The proposed pilot project for state-of-the art Discovery Park, the first of its kind in India and only second in the world, is progressing well and is likely to be operational soon in Amethi, the parliamentary constituency of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

While the entire project to be established by Allahabad's Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-A) in Amethi at a cost of Rs 400 crore may take some time, its pilot project was expected to start soon.

Presently, the pilot project was being operated from IIIT-A campus in Allahabad with an initial investment of Rs five crore.

''Some experts from the field of bio-fuel and other applied sciences have been identified and the blue print is already in the place,'' Dr M D Tiwari, Director of IIIT-A told UNI over phone from Allahabad.

He said the pilot project with a modest investement, was being established and the entire project would be taken up in phases.

All the modalities for the project were being furnished to make it a centre of excellence.

The land in Amethi for the mega-project had been selected and some basic construction work was in progress, but it would take some time to shift the entire work there, Dr Tiwari said.

Conceptualised on the lines of Discovery Park in the University of Purdue in United States, the only University in the world to have successfully experimented it, the IIIT-A was providing the techincal inputs of one of the most ambitious projects to be implemented in India. The idea behind such project has been to facilitate the researches in the non-traditional fields like Nano-technology, Bio-informatics through Information Technology (IT) as well as to benefit the society, directly through these scientific advancements.

A Centre of Oncological sciences, an e-entrepreneurial development centre as well as a centre of Micro-electronics were just a few in the long chain of institutes and labs that IIIT-A would establish as integral organs of the ambitious Discovery Park project. The Oncological Centre at US Discovery Park has been doing wonders with the cancer patients and it would be good news for cancer patients here.

The IIIT-A Director said the Park would also have an Indo-Swiss centre for micro-electronics, an Indo-US Centre for Language Technology, an Indo-Danish centre for wireless sensors and senses, a centre for Healthcare, a centre for Robotics and a centre for Nanotechnology.

It would also serve as a mother institution for a chain of institutions coming up in Amethi, like the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology and a medical college.

He said the park would also take care of the entertainment of visitors with a sprawling amusement park, having the aim of imparting science education through entertainment.

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