A three-member committee has recommended Kandi village in Medak district as the ideal location for the Indian Institute of Technology. The site is 50 km from Begumpet airport, 15 km from Phase II of the Outer Ring Road and 12 km from Shankarpally railway station. It is 8 km from Sangareddy on National Highway 9 to Mumbai. The committee said 474 acres of land was available in one block, of which 125 acres was government land. Acquiring the rest would cost about Rs 10 crores, it said.

The land is level without hillocks and away from pollution zone It said another 150 acres of government land was available at a village 6 km from Kandi for future expansion of the IIT. The committee inspected Lakdaram in Patancheru mandal, Kandi and Yeddumailaram in Sangareddy mandal before recommending the Kandi site. The committee, comprising Prof R. Natarajan, former chairman of All India Council for Technical Education and former director of IIT Madras, Prof N. Balakrishnan, associate director of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and Prof Rajiv Sangal, director of International Institute of Information Technology, submitted its report to Chief Minister Y.S.. Rajasekhar Reddy here on Sunday.

Releasing copies of the report to mediapersons, the Chief Minister said the committee had visited sites in Medak and Adilabad districts including Basar. After taking the views of experts into consideration, it had recommended that “from a predominantly academic perspective, and keeping in mind the probability of fulfilment of the expectations from an IIT in AP, the analyses point to the Kandi site in Medak district as the more appropriate and suitable location”. The State government has accepted the report.

Dr Reddy said he and the Congress was in favour of locating the IIT at Basar and was party to the Assembly resolution seeking the IIT there. “Since the government is not able to set up IIT at Basar, in view of the report of the committee we have thought of alternate plans for Basar,” he said. The committee felt that the existence of a large number of industries, research and development laboratories, educational institutions in the vicinity of Kandi village offers opportunities for interaction and collaboration.

“Since the proposed IIT will no doubt have extensive interaction with international institutions and academics, proximity to an international airport (Hyderabad) is a plus point,” it said. On Basara, the panel said there was availability of a large tract of flat land free of construction, free of encumbrances and a new airport is expected to come up in nearby Nanded. The weaknesses of Basar is that there are very few industries in the region and considerable infrastructure such as schools, hospitals have to be created in order to attract high quality faculty and cater to the needs of the students.