Outreach Activities

The abysmal scenario of professional education in Odisha resulting in a mass exodus of students to the Southern states for admission led to the establishment of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in a rented garage way back in 1992-93, the base year is 1997. It has now grown into a huge multi-disciplinary state-of-the-art University with the ‘Institution of Eminence’ tag attached to it. KIIT is now a conglomeration of institutions imparting education and training in various branches of Engineering, Medical and Dental studies, Jurisprudence, Management, Nursing, Biotechnology, Film and Media, Humanities and many others. Strictly on the lines of recommendations of Radhakrishnan Commission, KIIT has been enthusing new ideals, sympathy for poor, and respect for women, love and peace. KIIT started another institution, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) exclusively for the poorest of the poor tribal children the same year that has now grown into the largest residential tribal institution of the world having 60,000 tribal students (30000 students in KISS Bhubaneswar, 20000 alumni and 10000 students in satellite centres in 10 districts of Odisha). At KISS, the children are provided with food, accommodation, health care and education from KG to PhD absolutely free. It was accorded the status of a University in 2017, the first tribal university in the world.

KIIT Institution of Eminence

Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS)

Odisha has tribals who constitute one-fourth of the total population. They live in the forest in isolation without basic amenities available to them. Particularly they are not aware of education, good health, and other things. That is why they live in abject poverty and hunger, which cause malnutrition and illiteracy. KISS is a great gift to the tribal community, contributed by KIIT since its inception. KISS which was started with 125 poor tribal children, is now the home for 60,000 tribal students (30000 students in KISS Bhubaneswar, 20000 alumni and 10000 students in satellite centres in 10 districts of Odisha) – a fully free & fully residential institute. It has also been accorded the status of Deemed University status by the Ministry of HRD, Government of India and has the distinction of being the first-ever tribal university in the world exclusively for the tribal children, fully free & fully residential. KISS has tied up with all UN agencies and all international agencies because of its quality work. It has been running with the help of all the stakeholders of KIIT and also well-wishers of KIIT with a very good financial model developed by its Founder, Prof. Achyuta Samanta, who leads not only a simple life in a rented house but also sacrificed his entire life for the cause of KISS, that is why it has been possible.

Periphery Development

Though KIIT’s contribution to the society at large cannot be quantified, yet KIIT has impacted every aspect of society. With the coming up of KIIT in the outskirts of the city, there has been a tremendous commercial and social growth in the area. The land price of Rs. 30,000 per acre in 1993 has now soared up to Rs. 20 crores today. A lot of shopping complexes, residential houses, hotels, restaurants have come up employing thousands and even generating huge revenue for the state. The idle youth often lured to crimes are now responsibly employed youngsters venturing out to lend their hands for the growth of the area. KIIT has employed 500 local youth as employees in KIIT. Besides, many educational institutions have come up in the area too. The area abuzz with commercial activities has now employed thousands directly while KIIT has given direct employment to over 10000 people and 2, 00,000 people indirect employment. As a result of which the following have taken place.

  • Business activities have gone up
  • New educational institutions have come up
  • Generating huge Employment
  • Reduction in crime rate in the area
  • Land prices and the Infrastructure cost has gone up manifold

The once deserted outskirts have now become a city within the city of Bhubaneswar

Skill Development & Entrepreneurship

Skill development and encouragement to entrepreneurship have remained an integral part of KIIT as a University. Apart from its own training and through Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), KIIT has trained more than 50,000 skilled persons to be employed successfully since 1992 onwards giving a certificate for ITI and Polytechnic in different trades. Besides that KIIT has been giving skill training to 5000 youth every year with employability in different parts of the country under DDU-GKY and many other Government of India / Government of Odisha schemes. An exemplary Job Mela’ was organised in Kandhamal Parliamentary Constituency in the month of January 2020. Eighty companies came to Kandhamal and offered 7000 jobs to rural unemployed youth with a qualification of class 5th – 10th standard.

Creating Entrepreneurs

Under the leadership of its Founder, Prof. Achyuta Samanta, KIIT has groomed 100 Entrepreneurs. They are successful in their career. Further, 100 Entrepreneurs have come out from KIIT TBI (Technology Business Incubator) to date.

Internationalization

KIIT International Alumni Community

KIIT has been established in the state of Odisha without much visibility in the country and beyond its shores, till the last decade. So also there was no international airport at Bhubaneswar.

KIIT has been very popular in the internationalisation of higher education. Not only KIIT has signed more than 170 MoUs in India and abroad, but also it has acquired membership of all the international agencies meant for education. It has got the prestigious Internationalization Strategies Advisory Service (ISAS) Badge from the International Association of Universities (IAU). With respect to attracting students, its achievement is unique. Though KIIT is situated at Bhubaneswar, in the state of Odisha still it can have at present 1000 foreign students from 53 countries, while more than 2000 have already graduated. Besides having many short term courses for the foreign students, KIIT has been organising hundreds of international and national seminars, workshops, conferences throughout the year including World Congress of Anthropology and also World Congress of Poets attracting attendance from 83 countries. It is a good thing that 20 Hon’ble Nobel Laureates have delivered lectures in KIIT in the last 10 years.

Sports

Realising that Academics and sports complement each other, from the inception of KIIT we have been giving top priority to sports. As a result, huge sports infrastructure for 32 sports events has been created, including international standard Swimming Pool, Archery Ground, Rugby Ground, Football Ground, Hockey Ground, BCCI approved Cricket Ground and all others. It has been proved successfully by conducting the first-ever Khelo India University Games entirely at KIIT campus very successfully and smoothly within two months’ notice followed by Silver Jubilee Sports Celebration of All India Forests.

KIIT and KISS have been able to produce 5000 sports personnel (students) those who are playing international, national, state, university-level games. KIIT is the only university in India, which has given the country Olympian and also brought Gold medal in World University Games first time to the country with its students participating in Asiad, Commonwealth, all other international sports and athletic meets. Nowhere else sports infrastructure is available at one place, the way KIIT has created in its campus.

Tourism

Since its inception (1997 is the base year), KIIT has been organising hundreds of national and international seminars, workshops, conferences inviting thousands of luminaries from India and abroad to Bhubaneswar. Besides that, out of 30,000 students in KIIT University and KIIT Group of Institutions, 95% of students come from every nook & corner of India and also from 53 countries. All these things contribute a lot in the field of Tourism of the state and we can very well justify the comment of Airport authority and Hotels that in every flight, 20% seats are reserved because of only KIIT so also in the Hotels. KIIT has tremendous contribution in the field of art, literature, culture, tourism, spiritualism and many other fields.

Rural Development

In the case of Rural Development, KIIT has tremendous contribution since its inception. One will be happy and surprised to know from the year 2000 when KIIT was only three years old (1997 – 2000) KIIT has started converting one most remote village into a model village & then into a smart village. The name of the village is Kalarabank, situated in the district of Cuttack, 60 KM from Bhubaneswar. This village had no facilities for the people of that area. Now the Kalarabank village has been certified as the only smart village in the country and the entire Panchayat (cluster of villages) has been developed into the Model Panchayat. City amenities have been created in this Village and Panchayat and so it is looking just like a city. These facilities include High School (Residential), Nationalised Bank with Locker & ATM, Police Station, Post Office, vernacular residential school (Kalinga English Medium School), KIMS Rural Health Centre with Tele-Medicine Facility, Public Library, Public Park, Children’s Park, Drinking Water Project, Concrete Road, Street Lights, Citizen Knowledge & Service Centre, etc.

Healthcare

As rightly said health is wealth, so health care is very important for every society and every person in society. KIIT is also having huge medical college, dental college, with a 2500 bedded multispecialty hospital. KIIT has been contributing a lot towards the health sector for the poor people in the state.

The University Medical College and Hospital, Dental College and Hospital were designed to be Medical Centres for the communities living around and beyond. 2500 bedded Super Specialty Hospital provides round the clock critical health services to the people with a provision of free OPD treatment to 2000 patients daily speak for it all. This multi-speciality hospital has made provisions for nearly 850 indoor patients to pay only Rs. 100 per day towards treatment, diet, cleaning and housekeeping expenses. Besides, there has been a blanket ten per cent discount.

For the people living in rural areas, KIIT has established Medical centres, Rural Dispensaries with 25 beds other than a separate 100 bedded urban dispensary for the students of KISS, It regularly organizes health camps in 20 Blocks of the backward districts of Kandhamal, Boudh, Nayagarh and Ganjam on every 3rd Sundays of every month. Besides, Healthcare Awareness programmes, are organised to sensitize on various issues like Education, Healthcare, Malnutrition, Hunger, Poverty and Environment protection. There have been plans to make Odisha disease-free through the establishment of nearly a hundred rural hospitals with 25 beds each.

COVID – 19

During this Corona Pandemic, KIIT has developed 500 bedded COVID-19 Hospital in its Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) campus with three more 200 bedded isolated COVID-19 hospital with necessary manpower and Medical staffs run by KIMS in Knadhamala, Bolangir and Mayurbhanj districts for the people of those districts.

Helping to one and all

It has been a practice in Odisha and beyond Odisha that anybody who is in distress, KIIT is the first to extend its helping hand. It includes poor women, poor girls, poor boys, for their health, education, and livelihood. In the present COVID – 19 crisis, KIIT has been doing relentlessly since the day one of the Lockdown, all types of community developments as follows.

  1. Community work at the time of Covid-19 crisis, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), a Medical College with attached 2500 bedded Multi-Specialty Hospital, which is a constituent of KIIT, on the instructions of State Government of Odisha, has developed a 500-bedded COVID-19 hospital with 50-bedded ICU and 500 bedded back-up Hospital in its campus to augment the preparedness to tackle any untoward situation arising out of COVID-19.
  2. In a similar gesture, at the behest of the State Government, we have earnestly undertaken development of 200-bedded COVID-19 Hospitals with 200-bedded general back-up Hospitals in each of the tribal districts of Mayurbhanj, Balangir and Kandhamal using our KISS Campuses in these districts.
  3. While Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) will run all these hospitals and provide necessary manpower and infrastructure, the State Government has assured to provide required financial assistance to meet the recurring expenditure and operational cost.
  4. Distributing food packets to nearly 40,000 needy and poor families in and around Bhubaneswar City once a week (Every Sunday) which shall provide adequate nutrition and protein to growing children residing in slum areas from our own resources. This gesture will be continued until the 21 days LOCKDOWN period. Besides, working Lunch packets are being provided to around 1200 police personnel working in Bhubaneswar City for seven days with due permission from the concerned department.
  5. Providing cooked food to all the stray animals (Dogs and Cows) in different parts of Bhubaneswar and green vegetables to thousands of monkeys residing at different places of Bhubaneswar.

The man behind

Close scrutiny of the facts relating to KIIT, its birth, its growth and its excel-lence leads to an unbelievable and incredible story of the extraordinary feats achieved by an ordinary human being. No one ever imagined that a child losing his father at the age of four, raised by his mother in penury could create something like KIIT and KISS. The small mofussil boy with two traits, courage and honesty, received from his mother turned all his adversi-ties to his advantages in creating an identity for himself as ACHYUTA SA-MANTA and for the state of Odisha through KIIT. One has to be poor and sensitive like him to think of creating KISS and one has to be honest and courageous to fight against all odds to build KIIT. AchyutaSamanta’s sensi-tivity, courage, vision and determination are amply reflected in KIIT which started with just an unbelievable amount of Rs. 5000 (100USD) has today strengthened the world’s conviction that truth is definitely stranger than fic-tion.

Initially, KIIT has facilitated giving employment to 7000 unemployed rural youth with an academic qualification from 5th class to 10th class inviting 80 companies from all over the country and training for skilling 15000 rural youth from the entire Kandhamal and its periphery districts.

KIIT Community Engagement Cell (CEC) In the beginning KIIT has taken one aspirational district, Kandhamal, the poorest district with 75% population belonging to ST and SC for the CEC.

KIIT has taken an innovative initiative under Community Engagement Cell (CEC) to develop some parts of the aspirational district, Kandhamal and has taken 12 Panchayat from the 12 Blocks to make it a little bit more habitable and comfortable for the people in their day to day life and employability. KIIT has been working relentlessly on this aspect now.

As KIIT is the university with a difference and truly a private university in public service. Certainly, it is a university with humanitarian compassion. KIIT is a Community Engaged University since its inception. Its Founder thinks that if the University will not contribute to the societal effect and impact then there is no value of the university to only teaching the students and giving the certificate. As its Founder has tremendous enthusiasm for the society and poor people, which has been percolated to one and all staff in the university that is why in the coming years through KIIT, this type of community development work will be much more than the previous years. It needs the good wishes and blessings of one and all, knowing this noble work.