NIT doing great despite constraints: Meghalaya Minister

Meghalaya Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui Saturday lauded the National Institute of Technology here for consistently producing graduates despite constraints.

"What has caught my attention is that the institute, although being in a temporary set up, has not shown any inertia in the growth trajectory. You had been operating extremely well within the constraints and generated graduates in graduation, PG and doctoral levels, Rymbui said while addressing the 5th convocation of the NIT Meghalaya (NITM) here.

For the first two years beginning 2010, the NITM operated from Surat in Gujarat since it did not have a campus of its own in Meghalaya. It presently operates from a temporary address in the state capital while the permanent campus at Sohra is being built.

Terming students as members who are the backbone of the demographic dividend of India, the minister said the entire world is talking about Indias youths. Rymbui urged the graduates to imbibe a culture to harness the positives of the existing natural resources while at the same time inculcate the culture to bring in goodness by using technological prowess.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar was scheduled to address the convocation on Saturday but did not turn up for unavoidable reasons, officials said.

While informing that the state is faced with numerous challenges, Rymbui urged the graduates to devise solutions to the problems of poverty alleviation, unemployment, lack of adequate infrastructure and access to clean drinking water.

He also lauded the NITM for adopting five villages in and around Sohra, near its permanent campus under 'Unnat Bharat Abhiyan' scheme.